You Suck
by that lionhearted vagabond
Summary: Of all the places he possibly could have proposed he had to have picked a muggle cafe at four o'clock in the morning. Now a series of oneshots.
1. Chapter 1

**I started writing this just about two years ago and have since come to dislike it, I'll be going through and editing it a bit, but still if you're reading this please don't judge my current writing by it. **

_**You Suck**_

Harry had never been romantic, a noble git who would die for her, sure, but romantic? Not in the least. So really, in hindsight she should have seen this coming. Well maybe not this exactly, but something similar, something so completely and utterly unromantic that she wanted to cry. She might have to, had she not been the younger sister of six boys who'd berated all such actions out of her, until she had no hope of ever being a normal girl again. Even for Harry though, it had been a little over the top as far as the whole utterly and entirely and completely unromantic thing went.

They had been sitting in a café, a muggle café in fact, at four o'clock in the morning. Harry had been on his fourth cup of coffee, black, two sugars, and they'd been eating pie. She couldn't recall what kind of pie they'd been eating though; she remembered every single detail of that night, except for the pie. She remembered that the waitress' name was Sherrill, and she'd been wearing a pale green shirt, that there were exactly seventeen scratches on the white table, that there was no one else there, and that the red seats were exactly the same shade as the scarf Luna got from Neville at Christmas (and hadn't taken off since). She couldn't remember what kind of pie they ate though. She knew she could probably just ask Harry and find out, but she kind of liked the idea of the mystery. It was romantic, just about the only romantic thing that night.

They had been eating at four in the morning, at a muggle café of all places, because Harry had needed an escape from life, from Auror training, fan mail, reporters and funerals. Ginny found it ironic that the muggle world now served as a refuge, when so many years ago it had been the place he took refuge from, but it might have been just her.

She'd come with him because, well frankly she didn't have anything better to do, and she still was having trouble sleeping away from him, after that night, after she'd seen his body, being carried in that sick parade. So she sat, drinking hot chocolate (she'd never really enjoyed coffee), watching him rub his face frustratedly, while resisting the urge to fix his ever messy hair.

Then, somehow, she'd managed to get whipped cream on her forehead, not even her nose, her forehead. So Harry had stopped, halfway through his rant about how if a reporter called him Voldemort-Vanquisher one more time he would snap, and what was up with the wizarding world and hyphens anyway, would it really ruin a name if it wasn't hyphenated, to laugh at her. If he had been some romantic Prince Charming, the one that little girls dream about, he would have kissed it off, or even just wiped it away, but Harry wasn't Prince Charming, he was Voldemort-Vanquisher, so he laughed.

"You suck Potter," she can remember saying that vividly, he had just laughed harder.

"You know Gin," he had said, still chuckling, "I think I might love you," Ginny had just frowned at him, forgetting about the cream on her head,

"You still suck," and he laughed again, before ordering another coffee, he hadn't slept in thirty-two hours (that had been his excuse anyway.)

"And yet, I still love you, despite your inexplicable desire to insult me when any chance you're given." She can remember the adorable smile he was fighting to keep off his face as he said it, so she smiled; arguing with Harry was one of her favorite pastimes,

"Someone's got to do it, the media won't, and everybody else is scared of you, I can't have you getting a big head, can I?" He laughed again; glad, for that moment, of his insomnia,

"Yep, I'm definitely in love with you." Ginny had smiled then,

"For some unknown reason, I love you to, even if you suck." He had smiled then, reaching into his pocket for a reason, unknown to her at the time, before saying, rather bluntly, and completely unromantically,

"So Gin, despite the fact that I suck, will you marry me?" She remembered how hard she had choked on the mouthful of too sweet hot chocolate then, while Harry struggled between worry and laughter.

"No. You suck," she had answered, she could remember his crestfallen face so vividly, as her uncaring façade broke down, she had smiled again, rolling her eyes as she punched his arm,

"Of course I'll marry you, you idiotic prat," and he had smiled too, and for a second he didn't look like a tired, jaded, Auror in training, he just looked happy, the image of him, looking so young and carefree still warmed her heart, not that she'd ever admit it of course.

"Here, catch," he had said, tossing her the ring, her ring, which she caught with the practiced ease of a chaser, smiling as she pushed it on her finger. He grinned as he gently rubbed the whipped cream that had still been on her forehead off with his thumb. Of all the ways he could possibly have proposed, he had done it at four in the morning, at a muggle café, and had chucked the ring at her, in a so unbelievably Harry way,

"You know what Potter?"

"What"

"You suck."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N So, this will have an unknown number of one-shots, most will be fluff. So here's chapter two.**

_**Invincible**_

This was one of those super-dangerous- and-equally-top-secret-which-is-why -they-wouldn't-tell-her-anything-except-that-he-might-die-missions. The ones that only the most experienced Aurors went on. So of course, being his protocol-doesn't-really-apply-to-him-anyway self, Harry was going. Harry, who, at nineteen, wasn't even out of training yet, was going on the mission, the super-dangerous- and-equally-top-secret-which-is-why -they-wouldn't-tell-her-anything-except-that-he-might-die-missions, which despite her begging, and puppy dog eyeing , threatening, and even crying (She'd been having a _really_ bad day, okay?), she still knew almost nothing about.

Needless to say, Ginny was not very happy, not at all. Luna had told her that if she could find Cheerino Galpontsy she'd feel just fine, somehow she doubted that though. This was why she sat on the stairs of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, staring dejectedly at the door to the kitchen where she could just barely hear her fiancé eating breakfast while chatting idly with Kreacher. She was eighteen, which was really rather too old for pouting, but she really couldn't be bothered too much at the moment about what was appropriate behavior for a witch her age.

Just then she heard the scraping of a chair on the floor of the old kitchen, and the quiet croak of Kreacher's decidedly worried voice. Then the door opened and she was glaring at the black, messed up hair of Harry James Potter. She sighed though, staying mad at Harry was an extremely difficult thing to do, and ambled slowly down the stairs, ignoring the persistent, annoying, always present creak. She silently took in his surprisingly unwrinkled official Auror robes (he was the only trainee to have them, then again he really wasn't a trainee) and the wand that he carried in his holster, so he wouldn't "Blow off his buttocks," an inside joke Kingsley found hilarious, but she still didn't understand. His green eyes stared concernedly at her (of course he was concerned about _her_) as she finished her slow decent and stood on the landing in front of him.

Suddenly she wasn't mad anymore, just scared. Why did he have to do this to her all the time? He had saved the world, wasn't that enough? Of course it wasn't, it never would be, because she fell for _Harry Potter_. He must have sensed her fear, because he pulled her towards him and gave her a strong hug, holding her tightly against his chest as he whispered assurances (lies) into her hair. She sighed, letting him hold her, as Kreacher rattled around in the kitchen, doubtlessly preparing the breakfast she wasn't going to be able to eat. She let go, being strong, being Ginny, she didn't ask him not to go, because all that would do would to make him feel guilty, and a guilty Harry could get killed a lot easier than a not guilty Harry.

The sun shined through the sparklingly clean and drapeless windows, making her head appear like it was on fire she was sure.

"I love you," she whispered, smiling, a little weakly, at him. He smiled to, no doubt laughing at her antics on the inside,

"Love you to," and with that, he turned to go, walking across the seemingly-shorter-than-it-was-yesterday hallway. His hand was on the brass knob of the door when she broke. She ran across the horrible rug Percy had gotten them for Christmas and over to his retreating figure, grabbing his free hand she said, in a stronger voice than she had thought she had in her,

"Please, please, please don't be a hero." Harry sighed, running his hand through his hair,

"I'm an Auror, heroing is sort of in the job description"

"Fine, than don't be more heroic than you need to be, others can do the dangerous jobs just as well as you can."

"I promise I won't be more heroic than what is needed of me, okay?"

" Fine, I mean it though, despite popular belief, _you are __**not **__invincible, _and noninvincible people can be hurt, and you are not allowed to be hurt!" Harry laughed, smiling slightly. He pecked her quickly on the lips,

"Don't worry Gin, I don't need to be invincible."

"And why is that exactly?"

"Because I have you"

**. . .**

Really short, I know, I'm sorry. Review anyway please!


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N So here's chapter 3, just letting you know, these will not be in chronological order. So thanks to Rodentface, LissaShare, jcgeorge, Stephanie O, ****, thanks so much for the reviews, they are way, way appreciated, you guys rock. Oh, my spell check hates your names, but I think they're cool. So here we go****,**

_**Plan**_

It was times like these that Harry regretted killing Voldemort. Actually, he blamed Kingsley; he'd planned the whole event, to "boost the public's moral." Apparently, Harry's, the wizarding world's savior, moral didn't matter. Plus it was mandatory, mandatory, as in "Yes Potter, you actually have to go," the last comment wasn't really fair, considering that half the mandatory things in the ministry world, he was not actually required to go to, being Harry Potter and all. So really, how was he supposed to know when he actually had to go?

So here he stood, at the now annual (and mandatory) ball, celebrating the death of Voldemort, and the end of the Second War. He wasn't even allowed to "disappear" like Ron had because he was the "Guest of honor" (prisoner of honor), because he had killed Voldemort, hence the regret.

He hadn't even gotten to the worst part yet though. Oh no, not only did he have to make a speech, he was expected to open the dance floor, it was like the nightmare of his fourth year all over again. He had pleaded with Kingsley, fell down to his knees and begged, but no, Harry had to do it. Had he not already proven that he clearly could not dance?

Harry half suspected it was payback for making him have to deal with the press after the whole, accidently blowing up part of St. Mugos after waking up after he'd been knocked out by a bunch of rouge Death Eaters (which _really_ wasn't his fault anyway). Kingsley had refused to answer his accusation, other than smiling bemusedly out the window.

The dance floor seemed to shine wickedly at him as he prepared to meet his humiliation (he could already see the headlines), it calmed him though that Ginny was next to him, facing the humiliation with him, she wasn't much better at dancing then he was, actually she might possibly be worse, but if he was staring at her hair, or her eyes, than he could ignore the majority of the sniggering.

It was then, seconds before the music started that he came up with a plan. In truth, it wasn't a very good plan, it hadn't been thought out well, there were huge gaping holes in it, and Harry wasn't really good at coming up with plans, but it just might work. Possibly. Maybe. If he were extremely, unbelievably, phenomenally lucky. Which, fortunately, he was.

So he stepped shakily out onto the dance floor and for ten dreadful seconds he awkwardly stumble through the few steps he could remember from the five minutes of the dance class Kingsley had sent him to that he actually paid attention to. All while staring over Ginny's head, glaring at Kingsley as he grinned smugly at him from his safe chair by the buffet. Harry resisted the urge to flip him off; the press would have a field day over that.

Their dance was supposed to last around three minutes, it had been two, but Harry had complained and the dance (punishment) had been extended. This of course wasn't all that convenient to the stumbling Harry, so, ten seconds in, he engaged his idiotic plan. Instigating stage one, he began acting like the love struck teenager he was, and leaned down and kissed his girlfriend, while his eyes flashed up to the face of Neville, who nodded his understanding, this action went unnoticed by the crowd, who were too busy awing at what a cute couple the two kissing in the middle of the dance floor made. Stage two was complete.

Meanwhile Neville was spreading the word around too all of the young people who knew Harry, so basically anyone twenty or younger got the message. Then Luna started phase three, gliding out into the dance floor, spinning erratically around by herself, looking completely ridiculous. No one questioned her though, and no one asked her to leave the floor either, because, well she was _Luna_. Stage four was put into action as Neville joined Luna on the floor, accompanied by Seamus, Lavender Brown, Dean, Padma, Parvati, Michael Conner, Angelina and George, all of whom seemed to find the whole affair particularly amusing.

So it came to be that after only ten seconds of actually dancing, Harry was let off the hook. He and Ginny were obscured from the general view of the majority of the public by the multiple people who had joined the floor after the initial group. Ginny smiled against her boyfriends lips, whispering amusedly,

"This is your plan?"

"I came up with it on short notice."

"It's still crap"

"It worked, didn't it?"

"I suppose it did, I was just expecting something more . . . extravagant."

"Simplicity is better when it comes to these things, less ways for it to come crashing down."

"You know from experience?"

"Tons of it, I nearly failed strategy and planning in my Auror training."

"Did you now?"

"Yep. I was positively awful, apparently blunt force and ignoring your personal safety for others is frowned upon."

"Is it really?"

"Yes, I had to sit through a two hour lecture about why exactly it was a bad idea."

"Hmm…." The two slipped into a comfortable silence, Harry's head still angled down towards Ginny's, as she said slowly,

"You know you don't actually have to keep kissing me, right?"

"I don't _have_ to, I suppose, but I find it rather enjoyable."

"I'm starting too really like this plan."

"I thought you might."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N Hey, so I got a review asking me if this was a story or a series of one shots, so here's my answer, ****You Suck**** IS A SERIES OF ONE-SHOTS**, **they will not be in chronological order, I apologize profusely if I haven't made that clear to anyone. So, now that we've cleared that confusion up I'd love to thank my reviewer, SoccerReader, you rock, I'm sorry for any confusion I may have caused you. Anyway, here's chapter four.**

_**Dot**_

Ginny was lying on her bed, sighing as she looked at Hermione, who sat on the window seat,

"Harry, well, um… did he, uhh… he didn't, umm…" Hermione laughed as she took in her friend, struggling valiantly to come up with the right words,

"Did he find someone else and fall madly in love? No, never had the chance, and even if he did I doubt he would have." Ginny exhaled in relief,

"Oh thank Merlin, it's just he's been acting. . . distant, I guess you could say, lately, and well I dunno, I was just wondering if, well you know." Hermione once again struggled not too show her amusement at her friend's obvious distress,

"Of course he's a bit distant, he killed someone, even if that person was and evil, power-hungry sadist who had it coming, he, well to be honest he feels a bit guilty."

"He's guilty that he destroyed the most evil being of all time?" Ginny asked in disbelief, then, when she thought about it, it made perfect sense, it was just such a Harry thing to do, it made her want to laugh. Hermione however had started to answer her, jerking her out of her thoughts,

"Yes, well he feels a bit guilty about Voldemort, but mostly it's about all the people that died, he blames himself, he seems to think that he could have done something to protect everyone."Ginny just stared at her friend for a moment or two, before groaning, Harry, only Harry,

"That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard, really, that's just. . ."

"Harry," Hermione supplemented for her friend, Ginny nodded,

"I mean really, well, that certainly explains a lot, I mean I knew he felt guilty, but really, this is borderline ridiculous," with that statement the two fell into a comfortable silence, Hermione returning to her book, and Ginny vowing silently that she was going to help Harry get over his misplaced guilt, whether he wanted to or not, it just wasn't healthy to carry around that kind of burden. Five minutes later Ginny looked over to her bushy haired friend again, needing confirmation that what she thought she understood was actually correct,

"So he never showed any interest in anyone?" Hermione glared slightly as her reading was interrupted, yet again,

"No one, he actually spent a lot of time thinking about you,"

"Really, how could you tell?"

"He used to take out the Marauders Map and stare at your dot; it was a bit creepy actually."

"He stared at my dot?"

"Oh ya, he didn't have a picture of you, because if we got caught and they found it, it would destroy the whole point of him breaking up with you to protect you thing."

"Yes, but, my dot, really?"

"Uhu, he really does love you, you know." Ginny let that sink in, smiling to herself, as Hermione once again returned to her book, he loved her, it was a wonderful thought, it made her feel tingly, and like she was her eleven year old self again, who stuck her elbow in butter whenever a certain bespectacled boy even glanced I n her direction, it was a beautiful feeling, and she couldn't help but smile. It was then that she thought about the action itself, staring at a dot with her name on it was a little odd as fair as actions of love went, then again Harry had always been a bit odd.

"Actually it's a bit stalkerish when you think about it," Ginny could have sworn she saw Hermione's eye twitch at the latest interruption, but when she focused in on her again, it was gone,

"I did say it was a bit creepy, but think of it as Harry's own special way of being romantic; he took the time to stare at your dot while he was camping in the middle of nowhere." Ginny smiled, partly because of her friends obviously annoyed tone and the fact that she'd heard a clamor of voices downstairs, signaling the boy's (including Harry) arrival home. Hermione looked up at her when she moved to go downstairs,

"So I can go back to my book now?" Ginny smiled, feeling a lot better then she had in days,

"You do that, I have to go talk to Harry about his stalkerish tendencies." Just minutes later Hermione was interrupted yet again, this time by a knock on the door of Ginny's room, Ron stuck his head around the crack in the door,

"Hey 'Mione, Ginny said you were up-" He was cut off however, when he had to pull his head back out into the hallway to avoid being hit in the face by a hairbrush, Hermione had finally reached a breaking point, screeching, she said,

"I JUST WANTED TO READ MY BOOK, WAS THAT REALLY TO MUCH TO ASK?"


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N Hey, so I'd like to thank OttoIsMyDog, SoccerReader, RodentFace, tippytoes95, and People-Are-Crazy, for reviewing, you guys rock. People-Are-Crazy get's double thanks, 'cause she's my new beta, and she's awesome and she came up with the super cool title for this chapter, so props to her. There's a link to her on my profile, check her out.**

_**No Admitting Defeat**_

James Sirius Potter was bound to have a hell of a temper, it was unavoidable, he had Ginny for a mother, so he inherited the Weasley temper. He had Harry for a father, and Harry had always been an angry person, so he got Harry's temper as well. His Grandparents on his father's side had some of the shortest tempers Hogwarts had ever seen, and his Grandmother on his mother's side could not exactly be described as calm. So really, in hindsight, Harry and Ginny should have been prepared to face the temper-tantrum prone child that was James Potter II, but they weren't. A fact that in their current situation, was quite obvious.

"You are an Auror, the best in your department since Moody according to Kingsley, you face some of the most dangerous people in the Wizarding world _every effing day_ you willingly chase after them, and you are seriously scared of your three year old son?" Harry and Ginny were currently hiding behind their sofa as their son, in a fit of anger after being denied ice cream for breakfast, was throwing around, and breaking, hard objects, both physically and with a strong surge of accidental magic, or not so accidental.

"First of all, you're not exactly doing any better, and yes I'm an Auror, but I can't exactly curse my child every time he gets upset, can I?" Harry whispered back at his wife,

"Well. . ."

"Absolutely not, I am not cursing my _three year old son_, no matter how annoying he may or may not be

acting."

"You don't have to curse him, just stun him or something, besides what else are we going to do?"

"We could call your mother."

"NO!"

"Why not?"

"That's admitting defeat."

"So we should just wait it out? My eardrums can't survive much more of this, besides, she's your mother, if admitting defeat means she gets him to shut up then so be it!"

"Easy for you to say, she's not your mother, and I am not admitting defeat, we do not need help raising our child!"

"The screaming toddler on the other side of this couch might disagree with you." The two bickered back and forth for some time while James continued to scream and throw. Then their savior arrived, in the form of a seven year old boy.

Teddy Lupin was staying with the Potters for the weekend while Andromeda went on vacation, he had been visiting his friend's house down the street, he was just now arriving back. He had always enjoyed staying with his godfather, even if he wasn't the most conventional parent. Andromeda had once let it drop, when she was going through a particularly rough patch, not that he understood this, he just knew that his guardian had been staring at picture of a pink haired women who he had been told was his mum, that Harry's childhood had been _unpleasant_ he didn't understand why, or how a childhood could be bad, but he assumed, in all his seven year old glory, that his upbringing was the reason his god brother was left unattended, while throwing a tantrum, in the living room.

He quickly changed his short sky-blue hair, to a wild cork screwy afro, in a vivid neon green color. His eyes doubled in size and turned orange as he made himself stronger so he could throw the screaming child in the air, as he laughed at Teddy's bizarre appearance.

Behind the couch Ginny deflated against Harry, sighing in relief she said,

"Merlin, I love that child." Harry snorted,

"We should hire him as a nanny."

"A what?"

"Nanny. It's a muggle term, someone who watches your children."

"Muggles hire people to watch their children?"

"Uhu, I was watched by Mrs. Figg all the time."

"How bad was it?"

"I looked at pictures of her many many cats and ate stale chocolate cake. . . and her house smelled like cabbage."

"I'm so so sorry, and James is never getting a nanny. . . ever."

"I'm sure Teddy is much better at making cakes than Mrs. Figg, plus he likes owls, not cats, and when has he ever eaten his cabbage, or any vegetable?"

"Maybe, Maybe not, I'm not taking that chance."

"Fine." They sat for a while, listening to their son laugh in Teddy's arms, before Ginny sighed,

"I suppose we should probably go take our child back."

"I had another plan, Teddy's handling it." He then leaned down, closing the space between them, smiling as he heard Teddy leave the room in search of them.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N Here's another one with Teddy, I thought of this and couldn't help but write it. Oh, I go to Florida next week, so no updates for a little while, I'm only there for a week, and my Dad will probably ban me from the computer, so . . . ya. So, just curious, how many of these do you want? Anyway, big thanks to my reviewers, OttoIsMyDog, RodentFace, and SoccerReader, you guys make my day! My totally awesome beta People-Are-Crazy, who is the reason I can update quickly , gets a HUGE thank you. There's a link to here on my profile, check her out.**

_**Love and War**_

"You're seriously leaving me? Alone. With a child? Have you lost your mind?"

"You'll be fine, I'll be back in a couple hours, it's not like you haven't faced worse."

"

But-But, it's a baby, he's-he's, tiny, I'll break him," Harry sputtered out, holding on to a small child, around two years old, with bright blue hair, while he battled with his girlfriend, who was ditching him with the kid _they'd_, as in the two of them, plural, both, promised Andromeda they'd look after for the weekend, while she went with Narcissa to get Draco enrolled at Beauxbatons, to "Get away from the war."

"You are hardly going to break your godson," Ginny managed to get out while simultaneously holding back laughter, quite a feat. Ginny, after about a week of the intense summer heat, had decided to follow her boyfriends lead and wear muggle clothes, which were much lighter, thinner, and airier than robes. From the amount of times she'd caught her boyfriend staring at her she assumed she'd chosen well with her light, floral patterned sundress.

"How could you possibly know that, if I remember correctly you were almost as bad at Divination as I was, which is something most people couldn't even dream of doing."

"

Yes, my boyfriend, the Hogwarts dropout."

"I didn't _really_ drop out, I skipped my last year to save the Wizarding World, besides Kingsley let me in the Auror training program anyway."

"So you dropped out."

"You're a horrible girlfriend. You know that right?"

"I'm wonderful, and you love me." It wasn't until Ginny was halfway out the door that Harry remembered that he was about to be left alone with a child, a small, delicate, _easily_ broken child.

"So you're ditching me then?"

"I am not ditching you, I'm simply going to Diagon Alley with Luna for lunch. I'm confident in your abilities to not break your godson, now can I go? I'll be late." It was just then that Luna appeared, looking much younger than her seventeen years, with her long blonde hair split into two pigtails and wearing yellow shorts and a pink _Quibbler_ shirt, and a pair of muggle sandals Ginny believed were called flip-flops. She wore a dreamy not-quite-there smile as she tumbled through the door, falling past Ginny and into Harry, who switched Teddy's weight to one arm and caught her staggering form with the other. He smiled bemusedly at her, she hated Apparating almost as much as he disliked flooing.

"Wasn't Ginny supposed to meet you there?" Luna, who had regained her balance and was now smiling at Teddy, answered with a smile,

"I guessed she might have some difficulty getting there," Harry smiled sheepishly at her, while internally groaning, he loved Luna, she was a great friend, but if she didn't leave soon she'd start talking to Teddy about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, Andromeda would kill him if Teddy's first word was wrackspurt. So he glared at his girlfriend, but didn't try to stop her as she stepped out the door.

He looked down at the boy in his arms, what was he going to do with a two year old? Most people would have tried to think of things their parents did with younger siblings, or even to themselves, Harry however was pretty sure that by "Watch" Andromeda did not mean "Stick in a broom closet." So he tried to think about what Dudley liked doing when they were younger. . . eating and throwing tantrums, that wouldn't work either. He let his eyes wander about the room, searching for inspiration, he found it in the form of a bottle of ink.

"Hey buddy," he whispered to the child in his arms, "you wanna paint?"

**. . .**

Ginny looked back at Harry as her best friend dragged her out the door and towards the edge of the wards, that Harry would probably never take down. They were just ten feet away from the door, so she only had time for a quick glance, she cringed slightly as she read the look on her boyfriends face, _this means war woman!_

**. . .**

Ginny returned, only an hour or so after she had promised she be back. The image she opened the door to was to adorable for her to express, she clamped her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing.

Harry lay, passed out, on the couch, his cargo shorts and white T-shirt were covered in brightly colored paint, Teddy lay on top of him, just as messy, and equally as asleep as his godfather. She was about to grab a camera when she noticed something glinting in his right hand, which dangled off the edge of the couch, it was a vial of some sort, a nagging suspicion began to creep forward in her mind, she reached forward and grabbed the vial, smelling it, she groaned. Sleeping Potion. Harry would be out for at least twenty-four hours. Teddy however was beginning to stir, she looked at the sleeping form of her boyfriend,

_Damn he was good._


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N Hey, so I'M BACK! YAY! Anyway, I wrote part of this in Florida, part of it in Tennessee and I believe I wrote some of it in South Carolina, but I'm not sure. My completely, astoundingly, wonderfully, phenomenally, amazingly, indisputably AWESOME reviewers who get a HUGE thanks are; Scarhead62, SoccerReader, RodentFace (double thanks cause she reviews, like everything I write), OttoIsMyDog (who wished me a happy vacation), UnderWorldQueen, JensonBenson, and Expecto Patronum14, WOW guys that's seven reviews! You guys completely rock, just letting you know. I also have to thanks everyone who favorite/alerted cause it made me smile, and of course my awesomesauce beta People-Are-Crazy, who has her own amazing series of oneshots (check her out; there's a link on my profile). So here's the next chapter.**

**Disclaimer- I keep forgetting, I don't own Harry Potter, if you think I do your either a moron or mislead about the purpose of this site, one or the other.**

_**A Hero (Safely) Behind Bars**_

Harry Potter was an Auror, a damn good one, even at the age of twenty-one he was one of the best, so really there was no excuse for him to be sitting in a holding cell at the Magical Law Enforcement building at two o'clock on Wednesday morning, and yet, he was. In fact it was not at all unusual to see Harry sitting in a holding cell at any given time. It happened so often that Harry was on a first name basis with most of the buildings guards, something Ron found rather hilarious.

You see, Harry had a very large flaw, well in actuality he had a great deal of very large flaws, but the two that normally landed him in cell B4 of the MLE outpost building was his total and complete inability to any rules of any sort. Now the second flaw really wasn't his fault, but that didn't seem to matter to the MLE officers, in fact they found it somewhat amusing, because Harry was what could be called a trouble magnet. Now these two traits paired together ensured that he spent a great deal more time behind bars than any self-respecting officer of the law should, especially one as high ranked as an Auror.

It of course did not help that normal MLE officers did not really like Aurors. In their opinion they were snobbish, stuck up prats, who always got all the credit, regardless of the fact that most of the grunt work was done by normal, run of the mill, MLE officers.

So they of course took great pleasure in slapping a pair of Magic Blockers, as the magic preventing handcuffs had been dubbed, on the Auror department's most notorious employee and taking him into custody whenever they saw him accidentally burn down a building, using a semi-dark curse, while dueling three former Death Eaters.

Harry was busy relocating his shoulder when a guard, and Harry's sometimes friend, named Adriane Smith walked by, grinning amusingly at Harry, who was currently slamming his still handcuffed frame into the wall, he didn't look up until a sickening, yet strangely satisfying pop was heard, as the bone was shoved, rather barbarically, into place.

Sighing in relief Harry nodded in greeting to the stocky man on the other side of the bars, who responded, suppressed laughter evident in his voice, with a rather odd question.

"Your wife?" Harry however must have understood, as he replied, quite evenly.

"Nah, Ginny said she wasn't gonna bail me out anymore, something about it being traumatizing for the kids." Adriane nodded, and asked in polite interest,

"How are the little devils anyway?" Harry snorted.

"James is up and walking, and Teddy's staying with us on weekends, he's with Andromeda during the week." Adriane nodded absent-mindedly as he tried not to star at the gruesome, still bleeding cut running across Harry's face, snapping out of his daze he asked,

"Who's it gonna be?"

"Kingsley, depending on how pissed he is I should be outta here by noon." Adriane nodded and produce his patronous, a beaver, and relayed the usual Harry-got-his-heroic-ass-arrested-again message before turning back to the "Prisoner."

"You know you're probably the only person who gets arrested on a regular basis to call the Minister by his first name."

"The man helped break me out of my house when I was fifteen, calling him Minister would be weird." Adriane shook his head in disbelief at yet another odd story about the young man in front of him, chuckling quietly he asked,

"You want something to drink?"

"Firewhiskey would be great thanks."

"Coming right up."

**. . .**

Kingsley arrived, as predicted, a few minutes before noon, Harry was probably the only Auror the Minister of Magic would retrieve from jail himself, but then again, Harry was probably the only Auror to get himself arrested all the time. He fixed the Chosen One (/ Boy-Who-Lived-Twice/ Golden Boy/ Wizarding World's Savior/Voldemort-Vanquisher) with a hard glare, waiting for an explanation as to why he got arrested (_again_), Harry grinned sheepishly at him.

"Did you know the Flarius curse is considered dark?" Kingsley closed his eyes, breathing in and out slowly, while counting to ten.

"I swear to Merlin Potter, if you were anyone else I'd fire you right now."

"But I'm not anyone else am I? I'm Harry Potter, and you can hardly fire me, bad for the press, wouldn't it be?" Kingsley's fists kept clenching and unclenching, hovering dangerously near his right pocket (his wand pocket).

"But what I am going to do is sentence you to a full medical detail, take you off active duty for a week, and I expect those thirty-two missing reports on my office by Friday, got it?" Harry winced and nodded glumly, there was nothing he hated more than checkups and paper work. Kingsley wasn't done though, he smiled rather evilly at Harry, and still grinning he said.

"I'd go harder on you, but I actually feel a little sorry for you." Harry looked questionably at his boss, and wondered how the hell thirty-two reports in two days was considered "easy," Kingsley's grin only grew.

"Your wife's here, she doesn't look happy." Harry's eyes widened as his face paled, he look hopefully at Kingsley.

"The kids?" He asked weakly, he could use them as a human shield, Ginny never yelled when the kids were around (unless she was yelling at the kids, but that was an entirely different story). Kingsley shook his head, enjoying the growing fear in his young protégée's eyes. The look of fear turned to one of pleading as Harry said, his voice very small, "You know Kingsley, you really should put me in isolation for I don't know, a week maybe, this many rule-breaks shouldn't go unpunished. I mean this is my what," at this he looked to Adriane who cheerfully replied,

"Fifty-fourth."

"Ya, fifty-fourth time being arrested in three years." Kingsley was struggling to control his now neutral expression as he answered.

"I think your wife will punish you enough." Harry glared at him as he let him out of the cell, walking through the double doors to the entry, where Ginny stood, glaring at him with such intensity that he could actually feel his face burning. They hadn't even Apparated home when the screaming started.

Needless to say, Harry slept on the couch that night, or he would have, had he not been up all night attempting to finish those thirty-two missing reports.

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	8. Chapter 8

**A/N So, here is chapter, what is it? Oh, wow, is it eight already? Anyway, my usual thanks to my fantastical reviewers (I got eight**:)** you people rock) OttoIsMyDog,** **super16simone, AthenaPlaysSoccer, SSJJ92, RodentFace, Expecto Patronum14, Scarhead62, and JensonBensen, most of you are returning reviewers, and I can't even begin to express how much it means to me, you guys are da bomb, and when I say bomb, I mean the cool ones from Mario Cart that everyone loves. Also I'd like to say, I feel proud of myself, I figured out I can just copy and paste you guy's name on here, and not have to worry about typing! Now, a humongous thank you to my editing-capable beta, People-Are-Crazy, who, if reviewers are a bomb, is one of those cool little flying blue turtles (for those of you who have never played Mario Cart, that's mega awesome). Keep reviewing guys, it makes me feel special.**

**Disclaimer: Trust me, if I owned Harry Potter I wouldn't be typing this on my dad's laptop, just saying.**

_**Why Being the Daughter of the Wizarding Worlds Savior is Not as Fun as You'd Think**_

"No Harry, you cannot kill the boy," Kingsley said as he heard Harry walk through his office door (without knocking of course), he could tell without looking up that Harry was in rampage mode, he'd been warned ahead of time by Ginny. Harry glared at him.

"Well why not?"

"Because he's a minor, and he hasn't done anything wrong."

"Now that's debatable."

"As the Minister of Magic, I'm forbidding you from killing him." Harry sat in thought for a second, before opening his mouth as if to say something, he was cut off however by Kingsley.

"No you cannot organize an accident for him either."

"How about-"

"No you can't send him to Azkaban."

"Why?"

"Because he hasn't _actually committed a crime_, which is essential when _arresting someone_!"

"He hasn't committed a crime that we know of."

"No."

"What is the point of being head of the Auror department if you can't get rid of your daughter's boyfriends?" Kingsley, who was in his late sixties at this point, gave his favorite employee a sarcastic look,

"Well I don't know, maybe, protecting the Wizarding World? That sounds about right doesn't it . . .

**. . .**

Ginny stood back admiring her handiwork, the table, and all the food on it, could have been done by her mother, no one would know the difference. It didn't really matter that Harry did all the cooking, she had laid it out, and made it look nice- her train of thought was cut off the doorbell rang, and her daughter, who despite looking almost exactly like herself, had inherited Harry's personality, turned to look at her father.

"You are going to be nice, you are not going to go all psycho Auror on him, you are not going to quiz him on his knowledge of Defense Against the Dark Arts, and you are most certainly not_ going to ask him what sort of name Rick is_, got it?" Harry grinned at his little, well at thirteen, not so little, but regardless, girl, and said,

"It's a perfectly valid question." Lily just looked at him with her I-am-warning-you glare, while Harry seemed to be struggling with to decide whether to be amused or insulted that his own glare was being used against him, he didn't have time formulate an answer though, as Lily went to go and open to door for Rick (what kind of name was that anyway?).

_Rick_, was fourteen (a year older than his daughter), and had mousy brown hair that was swept untidily across his forehead, he was about a head taller than Lily, which wasn't that tall, in all honesty, he had to say the boy looked a bit like Colin, which was probably the only reason Harry hadn't cursed him into oblivion by this point. Well that and the fact that his daughter could be _scary_, a trait she had gotten from her mother.

Harry seemed to be struggling to smile at the boy, but finally gave up and settled on a respectable nod, although even that was hard. Rick was obviously terrified as he reached out to shake Harry's hand.

"Nice to meet you sir," he had no way of knowing that Harry's responding grin was more to do with Rick's facial expression than his pleasure (or rather lack of) at meeting his daughter's first (and only until she was seventeen if he could help it) daughter. He seemed to gain some confidence after that and turned to Ginny, who seemed to find this whole thing rather amusing.

"Hello ma'am, it's wonderful to meet you," Ginny smiled warmly at the boy, who braved Harry's notorious wrath,( at thirty-eight he was the third youngest head the Auror Department had ever had, the fact that he had been made head at twenty-five was unheard of).

"It's lovely to meet you too, please call me Ginny, ma'am makes me feel like my mother," Rick nodded unsure as what to say in response to that, he settled on a compliment.

"Well I can see where Lily got her hair from; it's a lovely shade of orange." At this, Harry grinned, joyously awaiting the violence and screaming he had often been subjected to when calling his wife's hair orange, it never came. Instead Ginny smiled, a thin, rather McGonagall like smile, but a smile all the less.

"Thank you dear, but it's red, not orange." Harry could only stare, shaking his head in disbelief. Sure, when her loving husband calls her hair orange she attacks him, but some random boy, who may or may not be a criminal (he'd only done three background checks after all), and it perfectly fine. It was going to be a long night.

**. . .**

Dinner seemed to be going well, Harry didn't try to strangle Rick, Ginny didn't scream at her husband once, and Lily's brothers weren't there so Lily didn't have to worry about them. Lily was actually starting to relax when all hell broke loose. Hell, which came in the form of a red-headed boy around Lily's age, who, upon seeing what he had flooed in on looked innocently around.

"Oh, this is _tonight_?"

It all went down hill from there. After the boy came more people than Rick was used to seeing in one house, ranging in age from around ten two a pair of people with brightly colored hair in their early twenties, all who seemed intent on threatening Rick.

**. . .**

A queue of sorts had formed, starting at Ricks chair in the dining room, and ending by the fireplace in the living room, up first were a pair of blonde twins who's names Rick couldn't remember (he knew they started with L). They weren't very big, and their blue eyes didn't seem quite there, but the whole talking at the same time thing majorly creeped Rick out.

"We're not very big-"

"But there's two of us-"

"And one of you-"

'Plus we're fairly sure we could take you-"

"So make the smart choice and don't hurt Lily-"

"Because she's like a little sister to us-"

"Except she's older than us-"

"Anyway-"

"Don't hurt Lily-" the last comment was spoken by both of them,

"And we won't hurt you."

**. . .**

After a few redheads came the couple in their early twenties who he had seen earlier approached him, which would have been normal had the boy's hair not been sky blue, and the girl's hair a faint pinkish color (the result of the mixture of Weasley red hair and Veela blonde hair). They looked at him for a minute before the boy started to speak.

"I'm Teddy, and that's Victoria," he said jerking his head over to where the pink haired girl stood, "and I'm Lily's god brother, which might as well be her actual brother as far as the whole protectiveness thing goes. So you know, don't hurt her." Victoria smiled then, her face lighting up.

"I'm Lily's cousin, and it's universally acknowledged that Teddy and I will get married once he works up the balls to ask me, so that makes me Lily's god sister in law or something, and I'm part veela, which means when I get angry, I get _really, really_ angry. Almost as angry as Aunt Ginny, and that takes some serious skill-" Teddy started talking, mostly to stop his girlfriend, 'cause when she started, she never shut up.

"I'm a metamorphmagus, which means I could turn into a scary biker bloke to beat you up, but instead, if I beat you up I'll stay like this, and you'll get your ass kicked by a skinny blue haired freak and his pink haired girlfriend, and trust me mate, there's nothing more humiliating than that."

**. . .**

Dominique was Victoria's sister, and her complete opposite. Where Victoria was tall and skinny, in that willowy, Merlin-I-would-kill-for-her-curves way. Dominique was on the shorter side, and athletic to a t. Victoria wore the latest witch's fashion, Dominique dressed like a muggle, a muggle with ripped jeans, combat boots, and a leather jacket. Victoria's hair came down to her waste, and was pink, Dominique's was just long enough to tie back and cut purposely choppy, streaked with red. Victoria was a Ravenclaw, Dominique a Gryffindor (hence the red streaked hair). Opposites, yet equally scary.

"I'm Dom," she said when her turn came to threaten Lily's poor, terrified boyfriend, "I'd just like to say I admire your courage, facing all this, plus dating Lily, she's scarier than my mum, and Aunt Ginny combined." Rick, who'd been mostly silent throughout his frightening ordeal, spoke up.

"Lily's really sweet, I'm not sure what you're going on about." Dom cracked a smile.

"Right, you obviously haven't pissed her off yet, by the way, congrats on that, moving on. I'm a beater, a really good one, best since my uncles apparently, but the point is that I know my way around a beaters bat really well, and am quite capable of beating them to a bloody pulp with one should they, let's say, hurt my favorite cousin. Just putting that out there, anyway, I think Rose wants a go at you, so I'll leave now."

**. . .**

Rose turned out to be a bushy haired girl that used big words that Rick couldn't understand, after her came a couple more red heads, Rick was just beginning to relax when the floo started up again, Rick paled, the Potter house was already very, very full.

He nearly fainted when he saw who had stepped out of the fire place, Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Minister of Magic. He was old, Rick knew that much, but he moved with the grace of a much younger man. Kingsley nodded to Harry and went over to talk to Rick, who was getting paler by the second. Kingsley stuck his hand out to shake the boy's hand.

"You're Rick," he said, he didn't introduce himself, he didn't have to, Rick nodded, obviously unsure as to what he was supposed to be doing. Kingsley smiled, just slightly, at the boy's deer-in-headlights look.

"Lily's like a granddaughter to me, hurt her and I'll blacklist you from the Ministry, and you'll end up broke and living on the streets. Got it? Good." He was just turning to leave (because really, what was the point of dragging the encounter on) when he turned back.

"You don't have to worry about Harry. I talked to him and he is banned from hurting you in anyway," Rick nodded again, and was about to let out a hesitant "Thanks?" when he noticed that Kingsley was muttering to himself.

"Not that something being illegal has ever stopped him before . . ." He was gone before Rick could formulate an answer.

**. . .**

The Lily Rick knew was sweet, and happy and loved Quidditch, so it was understandable that he thought Dominique had been lying when she said Lily was scary. He was about to find out just how wrong he was.

**. . .**

There were several different types of Harry-tantrums, there was the you-are-all-going-shut-the-bloody-hell-up-because-I-have-a-child-induced-headache, as well as the If-I-have-to-go-to-one-more-press-conference-I'm-going-to-bloody-kill-Kingsley, and the why-the-bloody-hell-did-I-leave-all-this-stupid-god-damned-paperwork-for-right-now, the Malfoy-is-a-git-and-I'm-going-to-kill-him, and then there was the interrogation one, which was so "Bloody badass" (as Teddy had proclaimed it) that it wasn't even hyphenated. Harry's Interrogation tantrum wasn't even a tantrum, it was just cold, calm anger, and Albus still had nightmares about it from the time he'd fallen into her father's pensieve when he was eight.

Lily had inherited all of these (except the interrogation, that was learned through experience) as well as few from her mother, and a couple picked up from her aunts over the years. The one she used however when she exploded in the dining room was an entirely new breed, whose name Teddy (as he was the one who named various tantrums) had yet to come up with.

For the better part of last twenty minutes or so Lily had been sitting in her seat at the dining table staring, rather dumbly, at the floo, but something seemed to connect as Kingsley flooed back to wherever it is he came from, and she lost it.

She stood up, knocking her pumpkin juice over and slammed her hands down on the table, and just in case that didn't capture everyone's attention, she screeched at the top of her lungs, which was really rather loud,

"ENOUGH!" And then there was silence, absolute dead silence as every single head in the room turned to stare at her, her voice lowered, barely above a whisper she started cursing in parseltongue, or at least that's what most assumed she was doing seeing as Harry was the only one who could actually understand what she was saying. Then, her voice shaking with suppressed rage, she said,

"If anyone who is not mum, dad, myself or Rick is still in this house by the time I count to ten I will hex them into next bloody week, got it?"

_One_

Albus and James were the first ones to the fireplace, knowing, from experience, just how unpleasant being cursed by their sister was.

_Two_

The queue from the fireplace was now to get out.

_Three_

There were just too many people.

_Four_

Several made a rush to the door.

_Five_

Dominique elbowed Teddy out of the way and hopped in the fire place.

_Six_

Teddy and Victoria realized they could Apparate away.

_Seven_

There's no more floo powder.

_Eight_

Only one person left.

_Nine_

He's still there.

_Ten_

"Why are you still here Scorpius?"

Had Rick been able to read the nonverbal language Lil and Scorpius had somehow concocted years ago, he would have realized that the smirk Scorpius sent to Lily actually meant,

You-can't-hex-me-because-my-dad-will-go-psyco-on-yours-and-you-know-how-they-get-when-they-go-all-psycho-on-each-other (and she did, there would be an all out war, and everyone would get dragged into it, and it would continue until Ginny and Astoria could slip a calming draught into their pumpkin juice). He had no way of knowing that the following eye roll from his girlfriend meant five-minutes. All he knew is that one minute he was staring at the now empty dining room and the next he was being dragged by his arm into the hallway.

By the time he looked up the blonde boy (Scorpius) had let go of his arm and was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, smirking at him (which, had Lily been there to translate, he might know meant I'm-going-to-stand-here-and-watch-you-squirm-for-a-minute).

Rick, who was getting pretty tired of the I'm-going-to-break-your-face-if-you-hurt-her routine, sighed and asked wearily,

"What? You going to threaten me now? Tell me how you'll beat me into a bloody pulp?"

"Nope."

"Because I mean really the whole- wait what?"

"I'm not going to threaten you. Lily doesn't need people to fight her battles for her, she wants to be an auror, her dad gives her private lessons, the auror department has adopted her, and honestly, she could kick your scrawny ass with or without a wand." Rick would have protested but Scorpius wasn't done yet,

"If she were to take here DADA N.E.W.T.s right now she'd get an O. So really, if you hurt her your doomed, not to mention the mob of angry relations, and the not-quite-but-might-as-well-be-relations, you don't stand a chance." Rick, who'd already acknowledged that he was a goner, said nothing, Scorpius smiled,

"But after you've been beaten to a bloody pulp several times, and gotten to know the St. Mungos hospital staff by name, it's me you'll have to look out for. I won't physically hurt you, but I. Will. Destroy. You. You won't even know when it will happen, so you'll be on guard all the time, and that will be almost as bad as the destruction itself." Rick said nothing, there was nothing to say, and although he would of loved to point out that Scorpius had ended up threatening him after all, but he simply didn't have the nerve. So instead he asked a simple question, only five words, they confused Scorpius though, more than he cared he admit.

"Why do you even care?" Scorpius blinked, trying to come up with an adequate answer, he didn't have one though.

"I don't know."

**. . .**

Harry was smiling at himself as he took in the mob of people in front of him, proud of his rather brilliant plan. Of course they probably would have threatened the boy anyway, but not at the same time, and not quite so enthusiastically, had they threatened him without the extra motivation it would have been quite a bit less overwhelming. It was slightly ironic that he started embracing his Slytherin side _after_ Voldemort died.

The most common prize (it was not a bribe) was five galleons, but Teddy had gotten some Firewhiskey, Victoria tickets to some "exclusive" fashion show, Dominique got a beaters bat signed by her favorite quidditch team, Rose got some old book he may or may not have had to nick from the evidence room (the death eater who's house they had gotten it from was long dead, so it wasn't as if it mattered anyway) and James got ungrounded. Ginny watched all this amused, shaking her head disbelief as Harry turned to Kingsley.

"I'll be on time every day this week." Kingsley only smiled.

"No you won't."

"No, you're right, I probably won't, but I'll try . . ."

It wasn't until ten minutes later, after a discussion with Hugo about his new gobstones kit, that Albus noticed his best mates absence.

"Hey Dad," he said.

"Hmm?" Harry responded, distracted from his playful bickering with his boss.

"What'd you give Scorp?"

"I didn't give him anything."

**. . .**

Lily sat under a tree in the back yard, moodily eating a monstrous slice of chocolate cake. There was something surreal about sitting on the grass at night, the way the cool July air was just right, and how the stars seemed to twinkle brighter than normal, and the perfection of it completely clashed with her mood. She was so busy wallowing that she didn't even notice the other person in the darkened lawn until they grabbed her fork and took a rather large mouthful of her cake.

"You did not just steal my cake!" Scorpius was unable to respond verbally respond due to the unhealthy amount of cake in his mouth, but he settled for an eye roll that meant "Well ya." When he finally got around to swallowing he turned to her with his signature smirk,

"You have way to much anyway, consuming that amount of cake by yourself is not healthy." Lily frowned at him.

"I'm wallowing, you're allowed to eat obscenely large amounts of food when you're wallowing."

"Why are you wallowing?" Lily gave Scorpius a look that quite plainly said, you're an idiot, but answered anyway.

"I broke up with him."

"Rick?"

"No, Pete the moon frog. Honestly, who did you think I broke up with?"

"No need to get snarky about it."

"Wallowing," she reminded him, "wallowing people are normally in bad moods, especially when talking to people who steal their cake." Scorpius put his hands up in surrender.

"It's really good cake," he defended. Lily gave him another look, before turning back to her cake, only to discover that Scorpius still had her fork.

"Give it back."

"Only if you tell me why you broke up with him."

"Fine," she said slumping back against the trunk of the tree in defeat.

"It wasn't fair to him, look at how he reacted when he got threatened by a couple kids." Scorpius raised an eyebrow.

"Not that I'm defending his spinelessness, but your family can be really scary." Lily decided to take the moral high road and ignore that comment.

"I mean, you know how much trouble I get into at school, it just wouldn't be fair on the boy." Then, unexpectedly, Scorpius began to laugh. Completely confused Lily smacked him in the arm.

"What's so funny?" Scorpius continued laughing for a couple minutes, unable to stop. Only after he'd gained some control did he answer her.

"That's so blood you Lily, I mean really, even when you break up with a boy, you're thinking of him, and his well being. It's a bit ridiculous." Lily scowled before elaborating.

"Besides, he was too agreeable."

"Agreeable?"

"He agreed to almost everything I said, not argument in him whatsoever, it was bloody annoying."

"I'm sure it was."

"It was," she agreed.

"It must have been," it was only then that she caught on to what he was doing.

"Scorpius," she warned.

"Yes Lily?"

"You're doing it."

"Doing what?"

"Agreeing with everything I say."

"I am aren't I?"

"Scooooorrrrrrrrrrppppppppp….." she whined, smacking him repeatedly in the arm. It barely registered that she didn't really feel like wallowing anymore. 

**. . .**

It was much later when Harry and Ginny lay in bed that she brought up the topic, trying very hard not to be distracted by the way he was stroking her hair.

"You shouldn't have done that you know," Harry didn't need to ask what she was talking about.

"It technically wasn't illegal."

"It was still wrong, the poor boy was terrified."

"He was dating my daughter, of course he was terrified." Ginny ignored the jab, continuing to press on,

"She'll never have a boyfriend with you around," and then Harry smiled.

"Yes she will."

"Will she now?"

"Yes, one day she'll meet a boy who will be so in love with her that he'll gladly face brothers and cousins and deranged relations just for the chance to be for her."

"And how exactly do you know that?" Ginny already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it anyway.

"Because that's exactly how I felt when I fell in love with you."

**. . .**

**As for the length, I really don't know, somewhere along the line I just lost control of the story and it rampaged all over the place, leaving me with a chapter four times the norm. I don't know, I really don't. Anyway, reviews are mucho appreciated and make me happy, and a happy Punk writes quickly, which means she updates quickly. So, you know, review. Also, although some of you aren't Scorpius/Lily fans, I like the couple, which was why I included them, but this will always be first and foremost, a Harry/Ginny fic. Thanks for reading.**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N I GOT TEN REVIEWS FOR CHAPTER EIGHT! I'm in shock, thank you all so so much, my reviewers (super16simone, SoccerReader, thecoolestone, emilyswain, SSJJ92, tippytoes95, Expecto Patronum14, UnderWorldQween, OttoIsMyDog, and Anonymous, I'll answer your question in a minute) and my alert/favoriters you guys rock so fricking much. I edited this myself 'cause my beta hasn't gotten the copy I sent to her back to me yet, and I got impatient, so bear with me for the grammar. It has just come to my attention that Victoria is actually named Victoire, and I feel kind of stupid *shame* Moving on,**

**Anonymous- I'm really glad that you enjoy my story, and to answer your question, Albus is a Ravenclaw, Scorpius is a Slytherin (they're not all complete gits, look at Andromeda) and Lily is a Gryffindor.**

**Disclaimer- Do you honestly think I own Harry Potter? If you said yes you're an idiot, no offence**

_**Falling**_

"You know, rain makes everything more romantic," Ginny said a-matter-of-factly, Harry just gave her a look, clearly stating with his accusing eyes that he blamed her for this, which may or may not have been justified.

"You can't stay mad at me forever, it's not like this is entirely my fault." Harry continued to look at her, before opening his mouth and enunciating every word with a careful calm that seemed to be on the verge of cracking,

"How is this not your fault? It was _you_ who decided that we absolutely had to go for a walk, despite me repeatedly telling that _it was going to rain_, and _then_ of all the possible places you could have picked you had to have chosen a children's playground where magic is blocked*, and _then, _as if everything else wasn't enough you had to drag me up a tree to wait out the storm that I consistently warned you about, instead of seeking actual shelter like a normal person. So now, I am sitting here, sopping wet, in a god-damned tree, and there is a branch digging into my back. So I repeat, HOW IS THIS NOT YOUR FAULT?" Ginny continued to talk though, as if she hadn't just heard here fiancé's outburst,

"The whole atmosphere is very romantic, we're sitting in a tree (Harry resisted the urge to growl at that particular comment), in the rain, by ourselves. Although," she said slowly as if considering something, "I suppose it would be better if I didn't look like a drowned cat." Harry sighed, his anger melting away as the red headed girl sitting in a branch across from him talked, staying angry at Ginny was easier said than done,

"You look like a very adorable drowned cat," he said, amusement very slowly spreading over his features, Ginny hit him in the arm,

"You're supposed to tell me that I always look beautiful to you," she said, torn between laughing and scowling, "It's in the fiancé handbook."

"Then I'd sound repetitive and cliché, and we wouldn't want that now would we? Besides, have I ever actually read a handbook of any sort?"

"You told me I looked like a drowned cat," she said, echoing his earlier comment in disbelief, while purposely ignoring both questions due to the fact that answering would mean losing the argument. She was still frowning and trying very hard to resist the smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

"An _adorable_ drowned cat," he pointed out, "Besides it just proves that we belong together."

"How could me looking like a drowned cat possibly prove that we belong together," she asked incredulously. Harry smiled,

"You look like a drowned cat and my hair resembles a dead porcupine on a good day, therefore we belong together." Ginny blinked slowly at him, completely bemused,

"I am going to take that as a compliment," she said, "And write it down as one of the oddest love confessions of all time. Besides," she continued, "A porcupine and a cat aren't even of the same species,"

"It's like Romeo and Juliet," he said solemnly,

"Cats are forbidden to date porcupines?" She asked.

"Of course, didn't you know that?" Then Ginny couldn't help it anymore, she was laughing, and Harry fell in love with her all over again. Ginny's laugh didn't sound like jingling bells, or whatever the hell it was that people said, when she laughed, she actually laughed, sharing her amusement with the world, with him, and the thought made Harry smile.

Once she had calmed down she looked seriously at Harry, suppressing the smile that kept creeping its way onto her face,

"You know what?"

"What?" He answered still grinning like the eighteen year old he was,

"I think I might love you," she said it completely seriously, as if she had just come to this conclusion (which she had not of course), which nearly set Harry off again, instead he answered,

"Well that's good, considering we're getting married in three days." Ginny couldn't help the way her breath caught in her throat when he said that. Just for a moment she had forgotten, she was getting married in _three days_. It wasn't that she didn't want to get married, she did, with all her heart, it was just she was so young. At seventeen she was barely an adult, and she had never really thought of herself as the get married young type, and she wasn't, but it was _Harry_ she was marrying, and that made all the difference.

It only took that one moment of surprise to knock her off balance, and suddenly she was falling,

and then Harry's calloused hand grabbed her around the waist, and he was falling,

they were falling,

head over heels (in love),

and it was Harry,

and she was Ginny,

and they were together,

and they were still falling,

and then they hit the ground.

It was covered in mud from the rainstorm, that was now pounding on top of them, and Harry had landed on a root (he could already feel the bruise forming), Ginny on top of him. He smiled up at her and as he leaned in for a kiss, he whispered against her lips,

"And now you look like a muddy, drowned cat." Ginny ignored him, forgetting everything except the feel of his face against hers, the bubbly feeling in the pit of her stomach that had yet to stop appearing every time she touched him, she forgot the rain, and the mud, and the tree, and everything except him, and her, and _them,_ because really, it was more romantic that way.

**. . .**

**A/N several important points,**

*** The park blocks magic to protect children from accidental magic ("You took my toy!" "Mommy, he set my shoe on fire) you get the picture.**

**Lily/Scorpius fans, I have a oneshot I'm thinking about doing, I'll let you know when it's up**

**I have a oneshot, (called Chance) that no one has reviewed yet *hint hint***

**Those of you wondering about Harry and Ginny's wedding, that'll be the last oneshot I do for this fic (I'm thinking about doing 22 of these)**

**REVIEW I can't even begin to explain how grateful I am to those of you who take the time to give me feed back, you make my day.**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N I have over 5000 hits to You Suck, so I'd just like to express my gratitude to my readers, you guys are the ones who keep me writing. Big shout out to the marvelous LisiLouLah, the estimable UnderWorldQween, the magnificent gingergryffindor, the astounding RodentFace, the remarkable super16simone, the extraordinary JensonBensen (who's happy feeling I hope to renew), the exceptional OttoIsMyDog, the glorious SSJJ92 and the spectacular MadyLurvesYou** **you guys are the most amazing people on the planet. You never cease to surprise with the feedback you give, thank you so much. You rock.**

**Disclaimer: Ya, still working on the whole ownership thing. . . **

_**Hide and Seek**_

"Shhhh, they'll find us if you keep making so much noise."

"You're not much better,"

"Shhhhhh," Ginny whispered again, her ear was pressed up against the door of the cupboard they were hiding in, the light from the kitchen seeping through the crack in the door and illuminating her face. "I think the coast is clear." Her announcement led to three minutes of wriggling around until it was Harry by the door instead of her, you see the cupboard across the hall from the kitchen in the home of Ron and Hermione Weasley was not meant to accommodate two barely of age people, prohibiting any major movement.

"I still don't see," Harry was saying, "why I have to do this, you're smaller and quicker than me." Ginny rolled her eyes, not of course, that her husband of just under a year could see the movement.

"We have been over this, you are in the Auror training program, therefore you are much more suited for this mission than me, besides, you've had training in withstanding torture, you would totally be able to keep your head if you got caught." Harry sighed in defeat, arguing with his wife was a futile practice, which could very well end up in dismemberment.

"Wish me luck," Ginny wriggled herself into a position that could not be comfortable, in order for her to be able to kiss Harry ever so slightly on the lips.

"Luck," she whispered softly, "and don't you dare come back unless you've completed your objective."

"Yes ma'am," Harry whispered back, saluting, and ending up banging his hand against the wall, they both froze as Harry swore quietly under his breath, the noise had brought forth no movement that they could tell, so after another minute of silence Harry turned the handle of the door and slipped out.

He resisted the urge to crack his back, knowing it would just waste time, crouching down he hurried as quickly and silently as possible into the kitchen, eyes open for enemies, back against the wall he looked towards his target, the pantry. Looking behind him he saw no one, so he carefully eased the door open, wincing slightly as it creaked. Stepping inside he looked over the shelves, searching for the object he had been sent on his mission for, there! Top shelf, right corner, behind a box of cereal, a bar of Honeyduke's chocolate. He slipped it into the pocket of his robe, and turned around, only to be met by a dirty blonde girl, holding a water gun to his face.

"Sorry Harry," Luna sang, "Ron told me to round up everyone not on our team and bring them back to his and Hermione's room, err- I mean Head Quarters."

"S'okay Luna," Harry sighed out as he put his hands on his head and allowed Luna to herd him down the hallway and up the stairs, wondering why he had agreed to play the tweaked version of hide and seek the Weasley's had played as children. At least, he thought as Luna's prodding led him into the master bedroom, she hadn't noticed, or just decided to ignore, the bar of Honeyduke's best sticking out of his pocket.

Ron had transformed his room into a prison, Harry realizes as Luna pulls a key from a chain around her neck to open the door, Hannah Abbott stood facing the door, a water gun slung around her neck.

"Hello Harry," she said brightly, "Err… I mean go sit over there prisoner," Harry controlled his urge to snort, Ron had obviously told them to act like soldiers, instead he nodded, and went to sit on the bed, with the other prisoner, Neville.

"'Lo Harry," Neville said, Harry dipped his head in recognition as Luna waggled her fingers at him and skipped out the door, locking it behind her. Harry, who realized Ginny was very cranky at the moment, and probably would not talk to him for an unpredictable amount of time if he didn't return with her chocolate. Overpowering Hannah would not be that hard, but he was bound to get wet in the process, and then Ginny wouldn't let him back in the cupboard and he's have to find somewhere else to hide, so wracking his brains he tried to think of a plan.

He came up with a rather simple one with an obvious gaping hole in it; however he did not see the gaping hole, which may lead many to question Kingsley's decision to hire him as an Auror. He turned to Hannah, who seemed to be very very bored.

"Hannah?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I go use the bathroom?"

"May you, not can you."

"May I then?"

"Umm, sure, it's right behind you."

"_Damn it"_ he whispered to himself, before going up and entering the bathroom to avoid raising suspicion. By the time he plunked himself back down next to Neville he had come up with another plan.

"So Neville…" Neville had known Harry for long enough to recognized his tone, this was not going to be good.

"What?"

"I've come up with plan B."

"And what would that be?"

"Kiss her." Neville started coughing and as he recovered he looked incredulously at his long time friend.

"Excuse me?" He sputtered.

"You invited her didn't you?"

"Yes but- but our relationship is _purely_ platonic." Harry sighed, keenly aware that Ginny was currently sitting, chocolate-less, in a cramped cupboard, and that if he didn't get down to her soon it would end very badly for him. So he pulled out his last card.

"If you don't kiss her I will," Harry hoped very much that Neville would momentarily forget that Harry was (happily) married to a girl with six (five) older brothers, he did.

"Fine." So he got up and obviously decided that stumbling through half-assed explanations was not the path to take, choosing instead to take the direct route, kissing her full on the mouth. She made a faint "Oh" noise, before complying. While Harry, not even bothering to attempt (and fail) to open the door, instead moving towards the unlatched window he'd noticed on his way to the bathroom. Using the skills he'd acquired from auror training, and multiple years of being an accident prone seeker, he hit the ground, two floors below, rolling, and miraculously managed not to break anything.

Knowing that it would be just like him to get caught again after making a daring escape he cautiously approached the back door, and then creeping through the house he approached the cupboard. Opening it he saw a fast asleep Ginny Weasley, knowing he would regret it, but needing somewhere to hide, he gently shook her awake.

"I got chocolate," he whispered as she slowly blinked awake, shifting to let him in.

"Hey," then she took a deep breath as if preparing for something, looking him in the eye she said,"Harry, I've got something to tell you."

"And what would that be?"

"HarryI'mpregant."

"What was that?"

"I'm pregnant."

"You're pregnant," he said slowly, soaking in the information.

"Ya-" she was cut off by the sudden force of his lips meeting hers, ten minutes later they tumble out of the closet as the door was yanked open by Ron, who proceeded to spray them mercilessly with his water gun. For some reason, neither of them seemed to mind to much about how wet they were.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N I'M ALIVE! So so sorry for the unnaturally long wait, I really don't have an excuse. On a lighter note, Thank you so freaking much, to you guys, the readers who made it possible for YOU SUCK to have over 6500 hits, and special thanks to my tremendously wonderful reviewers, VickyStarfish, NegligibleNaina, OttoIsMyDog, SSJJ92, super16simone, emilyswain, JensonBensen, you guys rock, and are the reason I keep writing**

**Scorp/Lily oneshot update- This is about the oneshot I mentioned before, emilyswain asked me where it was, so I'm giving you an update, I'm currently almost 5000 words, sorry for the slow progress, I've had life.**

**I have a challenge for you, the most reviews I've ever gotten for a chapter is 11 (on chapter 8), and I was wondering if you could beat that, note: this is NOT a review ransom, I post when I write regardless, just wondering if you were up for it.**

**Disclaimer: Still don't own HP, and finally, the update.  
**

_**The unluckiness of Harry Potter (or not)**_

Harry Potter was in a very good mood as he walked towards his boss' office on Monday morning, coffee firmly in hand (despite getting up at five a.m. for most of his early childhood, he was_ not_ a morning person), as well as a piece of parchment. It was this parchment that was claimed to be the root of his cheerful feeling, it was also the reason he was heading towards the office of the Minister of Magic.

He was still smiling as he nodded to Kingsley's assistant Drew, and pushed open the door to the Minister's office (without knocking of course). Kingsley was, fortunately, not otherwise occupied and could deal with his gleeful young auror right away. Not of course that it would have mattered if Kingsley had been busy, Harry would have started talking as soon as the door swung open anyway.

"Kingsley," he said in greeting, not very imaginative, but there you go.

"Harry," was the Minister's equally uncreative response, although it was paired with a nod and the slight raise of his right eyebrow, making it marginally better than Harry on the innovative scale. The complete lack of imagination did not seem to perturb either of the men though, so Harry continued, blunt as always.

"I have the weekend off on the Saturday after next Saturday right?" He asked. Kingsley nodded, and then fixed the source of his nepotism with a suspicious stare,

"Why?" Harry grinned at him, briefly flashing the parchment he clutched in his fingers before his boss' face, not fast enough for even Hermione to read it, but that wasn't really important considering Harry proceeded to explain what it said anyway.

"I'm playing for Wood, you know how he was made captain Puddlemere United? Well his seeker had a nervous breakdown, you know how Oliver can get (Kingsley had never actually met the wizard but had heard his fair share of horror stories from various sources, so he nodded and gestured for Harry to continue), then his reserve got suspended for public intoxication, so he owled me." Kingsley continued to regard Harry with suspicion, and asked,

"Just for the weekend?"

"The weekend after next," Harry corrected, "but yes, that was the plan, I might sub for him later but nothing serious." Kingsley's gaze hadn't lessened any, but Harry seemed to know what the problem was for he shot the man yet another grin,

"If I wanted to play quidditch my office would be three floors down in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, well, actually I wouldn't even have an office, but you know what I mean." Kingsley did in fact know what he meant and relaxed into his seat (All this can't be explained quickly, but the summarized version is that several generations ago an Auror, and a man from the DMGS were vying after the same witch (for there is always a witch at the center of these sort of things), this led to a great deal of bad blood, which to this day remains in the form of a fierce rivalry between the two departments. Kingsley's side of this opposition is rather obvious, ex-auror he is, but once assured that his protégée would remain on the auror's side of the battle he couldn't really be bothered.).

I can't say how the conversation would have continued because at that moment, Ginny walked in, a storming, raging, _terrifying_ Ginny. Harry H

Harry stared, wide-eyed, she should not have known he was here (the protocol in the Auror department when it came to Ginny was to send her on a wild goose chase, warn Harry, and hide). Seeing his expression he answered his unspoken question,

"Harris, he's new," and then thundered on, Drew, who had let her in, patting her comfortingly on the arm,

"THE BLOODY, SEXIST PRATS, " she began, advancing to higher and higher levels of volume as she hurled abuse at the Appleby Arrows, the team she had been trying out for that day. On and on she went, gesturing and screaming, and causing a great deal of ruckus to those new at the Ministry who were not accustomed to her rampages. After about ten minutes her vocal cords gave out and she was forced to terminate her loud protests. This was when Harry ventured to ask what was wrong, seeing as he hadn't understood a word of what she had been screeching except for a few stray obscenities.

"I'll tell you what's wrong," she said, her voice sounding hoarse, "the morons that make up the Appleby Arrows cut me because I'm a girl and cannot possibly be as good as the imbecile they took on." Drew murmured consolingly while Harry began to understand where she was going,

"So who am I punching?" He inquired. Ginny opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off by Kingsley's meaningful cough, "err. . . I mean who am I discreetly hexing?" Ginny raised her eyebrow disbelievingly, looking extremely disappointed,

"Discreetly hexing?" She asked, frowning,

"Kingsley says it's to eliminate my bad-boy image," Harry explained, Ginny snorted,

"You rescue baby hippogriffs from trees; you are the least bad-boy image man I've ever met." Harry threw his hands up above his head,

"That's what I said," he exclaimed, choosing to tactfully ignore the jibe at his baby-animal-saving ways (it was one time for Merlin's sake), Ginny however didn't seem to care about what Harry had said for she wasn't listening, instead mumbling to herself,

"No, that won't work at all. . ." Kingsley, who had been trying (unsuccessfully) to block out Ginny's banshee like screams had lifted his head from the relative safety of his arms and asked,

"Why don't you just hit them yourself?" He did not employ Ginny, unlike Harry, and therefore could not give a damn about what the press thought of her, Drew however did not seem to like his suggestion, for she glared at him heatedly,

"That's a stupid idea, she'd get suspended from the league," Kingsley wisely decided to keep his mouth shut from then on. Harry though, after almost a decade of knowing her, had not yet figured out when it was best to leave a fuming Ginny alone (it was that saving people thing of his) so he tried desperately to come up with a solution,

"Well," he began, "err, if the Arrows are a bust there's still twelve teams you can go out for, well eleven, since you probably want to avoid being captained by Wood. So that leaves the Catapults, Cannons, Bats, Falcons, Kestrels, Magpies, Pride, Tornadoes, Wanders, Wasps, and the Harpies," he listed counting them off on each finger (well ten of them), Ginny brightened as he mentioned the Harpies, a plan forming in her mind. Grinning she kissed Harry quickly grabbed Drew and ran off, sure of her revenge (you see the Harpies and Arrows are bitter rivals).

Kingsley simply shook his head and turned back to Harry, "You can play as long as you get a complete medical and do that report you bribed Caspian to write for you." Harry, still dazed from from Ginny's kiss, shook his head as if to clear it,

"How'd you know I didn't do it?"

"He used a semi-colon."

"Oh. . . ." and then, "um… sure, right, kay." He then turned and left the office, bumping into Anderson, a fellow auror, on his way out. Anderson smiled at him sympathetically,

"I heard your witch screeching, she sounds like a handful," Harry, recalling the feeling of her lips on his moments earlier, shook his head with a grin,

"I got it under control." Laughing, Anderson walked off, Harry following his example. It wasn't until he got back to his desk that he realized just what he agreed to in exchange for his Saturday,

_Damn it Kingsley!_

_**A/N **_**This is part one of two, the only reason I'm splitting it up is that I feel really bad for your guy's wait, so I'm trying to get this out as soon as possible.**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N Sorry for the wait ( I recently discovered H/G soul-bond fics), but on the Brightside, I get out of school on the 3****rd****, which clears up seven hours of my day, five days a week. Colossal thanks to my fantastically wonderful reviewers, Hp twiheart (welcome aboard), OttoIsMyDog, tippytoes95, emilyswain, JensonBensen, UnderWorldQween, super16simone, and RodentFace, you people are beyond awesome!**

**Scorp/Lily Update: The name, although subject to change, is Box at the moment, and I'm at 7000 words.**

**Disclaimer: I still don't own anything**

_**The Unluckiness of Harry Potter (Or Not) Part II**_

Ginny was skipping through the halls of the Auror Department, in a very un-Ginny like manner, and practically bursting from happiness, which was why she was in the Auror Department in the first place, to prevent herself from exploding. Ginny had discovered a little while ago that the best way to avoid becoming a balloon was to tell someone why she was happy, which was where Harry came in, who better to share her good news with than the love of her life?

His cubicle loomed in front of her and she stepped right in, watching with amusement as he shot straight up in his desk and grabbed the discarded quill on the right side of his desk,

"I'm working on- oh, it's you," Harry said, sighing in relief and relaxing in his chair (he hadn't realized that Kingsley meant _all_ the reports he had ever bribed Caspian to do, all thirteen of them). Ginny laughed, and momentarily forgetting about her news, she pointed to his forehead,

"You've got a little something right there," the "something" was a small pink circle caused from falling asleep on the hard surface of his desk. Harry glowered at her,

"What's so funny?" Ginny was still attempting to smother her laughter,

"You fell asleep?" Harry groaned in response,

"I was watching Teddy last night and he decided that tackling me around the legs while I was at the top of the stairs was a good idea. I managed to get him to fall on top of me when I hit the ground, hurt like hell though, and then, when Andromeda finally came to pick him up I had to start all this stupid paperwork, because Kingsley's an asshole." Ginny couldn't help herself anymore; she burst out in giggles,

"You-you-you got beat up-up by a toddler," she managed to get out, tears beginning to stream down her face, Harry however was not amused,

"So not funny, the bruise on my back is bloody painful," Ginny was trying very hard to look sympathetic, but wasn't doing a very good job, still she manage to inject some concern into her next comment,

"Why don't you get some pain relief potion?" At this Harry let his head fall to the desk,

"Cause Kingsley's an asshole," came his muffled reply.

"Huh?"

"He made me get a Medical exam, and it came to Healer Holloways attention that I'm on three potions at the moment"-

"Wait a minute, why are you on three potions?"

"You remember that thing with the smuggling ring, with the manticore and mountain troll?"

"Oh, right, keep going."

"Well you know how Healer Holloway is about over exposure to healing magic, so she won't give me any pain relief potion."

"What about bruise balm?"

"Nope, Holloway seems to think that I'll be more careful if I actually have to live with the pain."

"She might have a point."

"Whose side are you on?"

"The Holyhead Harpies actually," Harry looked at his girlfriend in confusion for a minute before understanding dawned on his features, he grinned widely at her,

"So you made it then?"

"Yep, you're looking at the Harpies' newest chaser; I have my first game on Saturday." Harry arched an eyebrow at her,

"_This_ Saturday?" He asked, slightly surprised that she'd start playing four days after joining the team.

"No you idiot, next Saturday, we're playing Puddlemere United-" Harry unexpectedly cut her off, finishing the sentence for her with a groan,

"-At noon."

"How would you know. . . oh," and then silence, awkward silence, Ginny of course, was the one to break it,

"Well Potter, I hope Wood's training you hard, because you're gonna get your ass kicked," she left before she could hear Harry's snarky comeback.

**. . . . . **

Harry's legs were aching as he apparated to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, he was groaning as he opened the door, but quickly plastered a smile onto his face when he entered the threshold, Ginny, who split her time between the Burrow and Number 12, was spending the night in the dreary house that night, and the last thing he needed was for her to see his exhaustion.

Both Harry and Ginny were very competitive people, and the newly formed rivalry had turned into a battle of wills of epic proportion, in fact, it was so big, that it had done the impossible, the Weasley clan had sworn of quidditch (just for the week mind you, but never less). It would have been impossible not to choose sides, but having Harry or Ginny as an enemy was not something one looked forward to, so, after a long stressful family meeting, it had been decided that until after the Harpies vs. Puddlemere game, the family would remain completely withdrawn from the argument.

Kreacher gave him a low bow when he walked into the kitchen, and Ginny immediately sat up straight in her chair, her own artificial smile glued onto her face, her practice had been killer as well. Dinner past in silence, the air filled with the sounds of starving young adults eating as much as they could after burning more calories than could possibly be healthy.

As Kreacher cleared the table the silence continued, Harry glanced at his watch, fifteen past eight, way earlier than they usually went to bed, but _still_, he chanced a look at his long-time girlfriend, she stared defiantly back, they were both to stubborn for their own good. The minutes ticked by, neither of them seemed to be making progress on admitting they were tired. Harry took another look at his watch, twenty-two past, _damnit, _he had auror training tomorrow (he had to work twice as hard as everybody else due to the fact he frequently missed weeks at a time to go on _actual_ missions), he looked back up at Ginny, still staring impassively at the table, her eyes looked a bit droopy though.

One of them was going to have to say something, and it wasn't going to be Ginny, he sighed,

"I ate way too much," he began, "and I got up at four this morning to answer Hermione's floo, so I think I'm just going to turn in." Ginny nodded at him, an internal battle being raged just under the surface of her face, on one hand she could belittle him for giving in first, but then she'd be obliged to stay up, and she really was _very_ tired. . . Ignoring her pride she nodded in agreement, barely suppressing a tell-tale yawn.

They both fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows.

**. . .**

The next week continued in pretty much the same pattern, Gwenog Jones and Oliver Wood both pushing their teams to the limit, and causing them to become the punch lines of many cruel, resentful jokes from overworked quidditch players.

Saturday arrived, and Harry couldn't be more relieved, he was very, _very_ glad he had decided to become an Auror, the young couple apparated to the stadium together, and Harry gave her a feather light kiss before they entered separate locker rooms,

"Good luck gorgeous," he whispered, she smiled slightly,

"Keep it, you'll need all the luck you can get," and then Harry was pulled off her as Wood began lecturing about fraternizing with the enemy, the last thing Ginny registered before Valery Gasper dragged her into the locker room was Harry flipping his captain off, she should have known, he'd never been good with authority.

**. . . . .**

"That's a nasty bludger to the head of Harpy seeker Jennifer Gavin,"

"Right you are John, she doesn't seem happy about it does she?"

"No Cyrus, no she doesn't. What's this? Newly appointed chaser Ginerva Weasley has the quaffle, and boy can she fly, she's got it, ohh nice swerve there, and WEASLY HAS SCORED!"

"The young chaser certainly knows her way around a broomstick, John I'll give you that-" The commentators were interrupted by a sharp thwacking noise on the glass window to their left, a Puddlemere United player was balanced on his room outside the box, upon further inspection it was discovered that the misplaced player was Harry Potter. He leaned towards the window and whispered conspiratorially to them,

"I'd call her Ginny if I were you, unless of course you don't mind giant bats coming out of your ears." Cyrus and John were not able to respond however, as Puddlemere's keeper had just seen his seeker's position,

"GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW POTTER AND CATCH THAT BLOODY SNITCH!" He roared, blocking a quaffle with his head, Harry swore under his breath, and then out loud,

"Merlin Oliver, I'm coming, no need to get your knickers in a twist," and then he was gone, he'd obviously taken his Captain's shouts seriously for he scoured the area for any flashed of gold, but it wasn't until three hours later that he succeeded in his endeavor.

His nose dive was spectacular, his finishing even better, the ground was approaching at breakneck speed and the snitch wasn't changing course, so he leapt of his broom and took the ground at a roll, coming up with the snitch clasped firmly in his broken hand (Healer Holloway was _not_ happy, Wood however was ecstatic).

Had anyone expected Ginny to be upset by the loss they were sorely mistaken, instead she tackled him as soon as her broom hit the ground, kissing him fully on the mouth, because Harry would never ever _let _her win, and she love that about him.

She could not help but add however, that the only reason Puddlemere lost was that the Harpies' seeker obtained a concussion from her bludger to the head, Harry didn't bother to argue, instead focusing on the much more interesting task of snogging the living daylights out of her.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N** **Sorry for the wait, my muse got distracted by a five-shot I'm working on called ****For L We Stand****, as well as a Mad-Eye Moody piece I may or may not post. So Thanks to my phenomenal six reviewers, JensonBensen, emilyswain, super16simone, RodentFace, OttoIsMyDog, and kalicious, you people rock! On a completely random note, dairy queen ice-cream cake is ridiculously delicious.**

**L/S- So I decided to split this into two parts 'cause part one was approaching twenty pages with 8,600 words, go check it out, hopefully it's worth the wait, I'm working on part two.**

**Disclaimer: I still don't own HP, sucks right?**

_**That Thing with the Smuggling Ring, With the Manticore and the Mountain Troll**_

**Or**

_**A Week in the Life of Harry Potter, Walking Disaster **_

"I've got a job for you," Kingsley said as Harry walked into his office.

"Of course you do, you'd never call me into your office just to say hello, it's always 'do this Harry, do that Harry' I mean _really_," Harry lamented. His complaints only seemed to amuse Kingsley though, for he just smiled and ignored them, gesturing for Harry to take a seat.

"There's an underground smuggling ring we've been tipped off about, fight rings with class X dangerous and illegal animals," he said, handing Harry a folder,

"And what do you want me to do about it?" Harry asked, accepting the file.

"Infiltrate it, find out who runs it, who participates, give us drop off dates and see if you can track down some of the bookies, the usual procedure. Will you do it?" Harry grinned and nodded, for all his complaints he genuinely enjoyed his job, Kingsley smiled at his protégés reaction, and Harry felt his insides go cold. He knew that smile, this was not good.

"Your cover is Daniel Rookman, the animal keeper," Harry started choking,

"Meaning I'll be dealing directly with class X dangerous and illegal creatures? Are you trying to get me killed?"

"No actually, you're rather useful, however considering your past dealings with creatures of this nature we considered you uniquely qualified for this particular assignment."

"My past dealings with such creatures were traumatic and emotionally scarring!"

"Yes well, now you're used to being traumatized and emotionally scarred, and know how to deal with it, whereas anyone else would have to learn how to adjust to such feelings, possibly compromising the mission." Harry stared at his boss in horror as Kingsley finished speaking,

"But…but…fine, you're paying for my therapy though," he said at last, feeling very old, and rather used. Kingsley smiled again,

"Of course, now off you go, and try not to get yourself eaten."

**. . .**

Harry resolved that next time Kingsley offered him a mission he would get _all _the details before agreeing to do it. He was a zookeeper, a bloody zookeeper. He was looking after lethal animals that routinely tried to kill him, and the pay was absolute crap, worse than what he got paid in the Auror Department, and _that_ was saying something.

He had yet to figure out who ran the whole operation, but the smug, fraudulent, asshole (Gary) who gave him his paycheck (all of which went to Kingsley as 'evidence') was his key to finding out. He had told this to Kingsley, who had responded by telling him to "keep at it," Harry was beginning to think he enjoyed seeing him in suffer (The rest of the Aurors had a bet running about how long it would take for Harry to throw a fit and accidently blow up the office).

He was three weeks into his cover when he finally figured it out, he'd never been more excited to get a mission done with (he was _not_ an animal person). He was doing his last rounds as zookeeper when disaster inevitably struck; they'd had a new shipment that day, including a manticore, a manticore whose cage someone forgot to lock properly, a manticore who stood about ten feet from the door.

He probably would have managed to get it back in its cage if it weren't for Gary, who had come to check that Harry, or rather Daniel, was not slacking off. The thing about manticores is that when it comes to their pride they are very much like hippogriffs, they tend to get very, very angry when called "stupid animals," and asked why they weren't in their cages.

Harry groaned as the manticore reared its head, displaying three rows of pointed teeth, of course, on his _last_ day. Harry didn't take any time to contemplate the situation, tackling the idiot and shoving him out the door, closing it behind him, the last thing the needed was a rogue manticore running around.

Unfortunately he couldn't just leave it in there either, which meant locking himself in a room with multiple lethal animals. Groaning he turned to face the manticore again, who was staring at him in a very offended manner, as if to say, _you just took my dinner_.

Harry, despite popular belief, and very strong evidence to the contrary, was actually a fairly intelligent wizard, or at least intelligent enough to realize that the manticore would now be trying to eat _him._ Which really did not bode well on the whole "try not to get yourself eaten scale," Kingsley would kill him if he didn't get out of this alive, so he did the smart thing, the right thing, the un-Gryffindor thing, he turned and ran.

Scrambling up on top of some cages and away from the angry creature, who was currently frothing at the mouth in anticipation. He continued to run as the beast opened its hideous mouth and let out a ferocious roar. Back-peddling, Harry tripped and fell into a crate, the other new arrival's crate.

The griffin stared up at him from its position on the floor, its eagle head tilted slightly to the side, and its lion-like body stretched beneath it. If Harry had actually read the pamphlet Kingsley had given him on dangerous creatures he would have realized that the griffin was the hippogriff's ancestor, and that a simple bow probably would have satisfied it, this is Harry we're talking about however, so needless to say he didn't read the manual.

Instead he began to pat his pockets, smiling nervously at the deadly animal across from him, nearby the manticore roared again. Finally Harry produced what he had been looking for, his dinner, packed in a brown paper bag.

It was leftovers, he'd three hours making the roast beef yesterday, but his life slightly outweighed his hunger, so he unwrapped the dish and tossed it to the griffin,

'Good boy," he said as the griffin lapped it up.

This was when the manticore decided to reappear, standing in front of the crate and tossing its human head back. The griffin had obviously decided it liked this gift-giving human though, for it stood and faced the offending beast, snarling its beak back into a vicious expression.

Harry probably would have made it back to his girlfriend unscathed if the last round of the day had not been finished, and the victorious mountain troll led back to the storage room.

_Crap_, was Harry's only thought as the troll noticed the conflict, and lifted its club to join in,

_CrapCrapCrapCrapCrap_

**. . .**

Ginny stared at the empty space in front of her, where moments before a patronus had stood. It really should not have shocked her, after all those years of knowing him, but she couldn't help the small bubble of anxiety that crawled up through her stomach. So, turning on the spot, she apparated away.

The walls of Saint Mungos were becoming increasingly familiar to her, Ginny realized in an uncharacteristic display of gloominess, it wasn't like this was the first time Harry had landed himself at the hospital after all, he was on a first name basis with most of the staff at this point.

Attempting to look on the bright side, Ginny thought that at least he wasn't in prison; she'd have to start keeping a tally to see where Harry ended up most, in need of medical attention, or arrested? She continued to muse as she turned the corner and entered the misfortunate Auror's private room (Harry's birthday gift from Kingsley); _Harry Potter_ was inscribed on the gold square on the door, twinkling from the moonlight that shone through the windows of the hall. The template disappeared from view however, as Ginny pulled the door open and entered the small room.

The walls of the area Harry frequently inhabited were covered in an array of quidditch posters, and the there was a comfortable looking armchair next to the bed (the only reason one would be able to tell that the room was in a hospital was the standard white bed).

The Chosen-One did not look good, his face was ashen, and what Ginny could see of his torso was covered in bandages. The young couple was not alone in the room however, Kingsley stood leaning against the back wall, and curled up on the floor was a griffin.

Ginny blinked and rubbed her eyes. Still there, which meant she (hopefully) was not hallucinating. She next turned to Kingsley for an explanation, but then she remembered that this was Harry, and that the griffin's presence was probably a result of some ludicrous adventure, which would be completely unexplainable until Harry regained consciousness. So she instead asked when exactly he was supposed to wake up.

"The healers say it shouldn't be much longer than three days," he responded with a gentle smile. Ginny nodded wearily and settled down for three days in the hospital.

**. . .**

The Weasleys all made their usual appearances, and Ginny kept her upbeat mask on throughout all of them, smiling and joking and making complaints about Harry's antics. It was an unexpected person that saw through the act.

"Bill," Fleur asked in her heavily accented voice, "will you take Victoire and go get me some lemonade please?" Bill nodded and eyed his little sister warily as he left the room, bringing his young daughter with him. Fleur then turned to her sister-in-law, one perfectly plucked eyebrow raised,

"What's wrong?" She asked unexpectedly, even more unexpectedly, Ginny began to cry.

"It's just, it's just. . . _I spend way too much time in this bloody hospital_," she said at last, tears streaming down her face. Fleur simply raised her eyebrow slightly higher,

Ginny continued her explanation in response, too emotionally shaken to be bothered with the fact that she was sharing this with _Phlegm _of all people.

"I know it's stupid, because this is what Harry does, he goes off and does something incredibly stupid, and noble and brave, and then he miraculously recovers from whatever supposedly fatal injuries he's gained just to go off and do it again, And…and… I just can't help but worrying that one day his luck will run out, and then I'll be left without him, and I just don't know what I'd do," she sobbed, her distress making her words run together, broken up by the occasional hiccup. Then, without warning, Fleur reached forward and enveloped Ginny in a hug. Beside them Harry began to blearily blink open his eyes, his voice was parched and raspy as he said,

"Don't worry Gin, I'll always make it as long as I've got you to come back to," Fleur slipped quietly out of the room as Ginny told the love of her life what an incredibly corny line he had just used.

**. . .**

"Ooh," Harry exclaimed in mocking excitement, "Purple goop! Thanks Peggy, you know it's my favorite." Harry had two different healers, Holloway, who worked directly inside the Ministry, and Peggy, who worked at Saint Mungos. It was Peggy who held the tray of questionable looking substances that one could hardly call _food_. She placed the tray on his lap and put her hand on her hip,

"You know Potter," she said, "it's probably not a good idea to antagonize someone who routinely stops you from dying." Harry grinned at her,

"You know I'm joking Pegs," he said, "If I weren't happily in love with Ginny I'd totally date you."

"I'm five years older than you," she pointed out dryly.

"Love has no age limits," Harry countered brightly, Peggy sighed,

"What makes you think I'd date you anyway?"

"I honestly have no clue, but Ginny seems to see something in me," he admitted sheepishly. Peggy turned to look at Ginny (who had been glaring good naturedly at Harry for the last couple minutes), and cocked an eyebrow as if to ask what exactly it was she saw in him.

Ginny shrugged before responding, "I really don't know, I really don't."

**. . .**

Once Harry awoke he explained a great number of things, including the griffin, who he had decided to name Godric ("Get it? _Gryffin_dor?"). The animal had apparently decided that Harry was worth saving and had fought with him against the troll and manticore, as well as all the other creatures that had somehow made it out of their cages. The memory was watched (Ginny refused to speak to Harry for several hours after she learned that he had risked his life for a man that had been making him _miserable_ for the last couple of weeks), and Peggy reexamined the injuries he had received, eventually concluding that it was several highly poisonous pixies were the ones that had knocked him unconscious.

Harry took this as an insult to his masculinity and the word pixie became a taboo to all those who knew him (indeed, years later Lily Luna Potter was one of the only young witches in Wizarding Britain that was denied a _My Little Pixie_ doll).

Despite many pleadings on Harry's part, the proposal that he keep Godric was immediately shot down by Kingsley, Ginny, and anyone else who was close enough to shout at him. So Godric was sent to a reservation a friend of Charlie's worked at, where he would someday father three healthy young Hippogriffs (Rowena, Helga, and Salazar).

Just another normal week for those unfortunate enough to know one Harry James Potter.

**So there it is, yes the wait was longer than usual, but it's long(ish). So... don't kill me, please? Or better yet, kill me but leave a review, 'cause it's a well known fact that reviews can bring an author back form the grave. Well actually they just make me really happy, but whatev.**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N My only excuse is that it has been **_**way**_** too hot to write, which isn't much of an excuse, but you have a chapter now so, forgive me?**

** Thank you to my wonderful inspiring reviewers, UnderWorldQween, super16simone, OttoIsMyDog, SoccerReader, SSJJ92, JensonBensen,** **taliandtutu, Wondering Hail and TwistedImaginings, I cannot even begin to describe how much your comments mean to me.**

**Disclaimer: If I owned HP Fred would not be dead, got it? Good.**

_**Birds of a Feather**_

Harry and Ginny sat on either side of the same couch, their backs to their respective arm rests, knees knocking, eyes locked. A heavy silence had settled over the room, and their penetrating gazes never wavered from each other's intense stare.

"This," Ginny said at last, "is ridiculous." Harry smirked at her,

"You're only saying that because you know you're going to lose," he said. Ginny narrowed her eyes slightly at him,

"I am _not_ going to lose."

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"I am _so_ not having this conversation with you."

"So I win then."

"No you do not win the stupid argument, nor are you going to win this contest."

"I have to disagree with you there-" Ginny cut him off,

"You know what? I'm not having _this_ argument either."

"Fine then." The silence entered once again, and then something entirely unimportant happened. The movement was miniscule, barely noticeable, and no matter how hard she tried, Ginny could not prevent it. She blinked.

"Ha!" Harry shouted, punching his fist in the air, before turning to look at Ginny, "So you'll stop bugging me about it then?"

"For a day."

"What?" He spluttered, staring at the red-headed girl across from him in disbelief.

"I said if you won I would stop bugging you about it, I never said for how long." Harry groaned at his short lived victory, before trying (once again) to get rid of the ridiculous notion that had caused their staring match to begin,

"I don't want a bloody owl!"

"Yes but you _need _one."

"I had an owl!"

"Yes Harry," she said gently, "but she _died_." Ginny was not being tactless, well actually she was, but she had tried tact for about a week, and the owl issue had remained unresolved, so she had deserted her attempt and gone with her usual way of arguing instead, that hadn't worked either.

She opened her mouth to continue, but Harry spoke first,

"I am not discussing this, I won, which means that you are violating the don't-bug-Harry-about-whether-or-not-he-needs-an-owl-(which he doesn't)-bet." Ginny grinned,

"I never said _when_ either."

**. . .**

__"Look," Ginny said a week later, "Why don't you just let me get you a bloody owl, there's no reason not to." Harry raised his head from his cereal, looking very much like he would enjoy _not_ having this particular conversation (_again_). After staring at her in exasperation for several seconds he responded by saying,

"There are several actually." Ginny huffed before replying,

"Well what's one of them then?"

"Because I said so."

"That is _not_ an answer."

"Why isn't it? It was a response to your question wasn't it?"

"Fine! What is a _logical _reason behind your aversion to getting an owl?"

"Logical? Since when are you Hermione?"

"Just answer the question!"

"Fine, it would be like losing, and I don't like losing."

"But what if it were like winning? Would you let me get you one _then_?

"How could losing possibly be like winning?"

"You would get a prize." Harry arched an eyebrow, his spoon halfway between his bowl and his mouth,

"Oh ya? And what would my prize be?" Ginny grinned at him,

"An owl."

**. . .**

They had been having their owl argument for about a month when Ginny finally convinced Harry to get one. It was late at night, and they had been sitting in the kitchen with mugs of hot chocolate when she began to speak.

"_Please," _she began desperately, "_please_ let me get you an owl." Harry faltered slightly at the distressed tone of her voice, but then hardened his resolve and shook his head vehemently, opening his mouth he said,

"Can we not talk about this right-" Ginny cut him off however, and he was surprised to see unshed tears glistening in her eyes,

"No!" She said loudly, and then quieter, "hear me out Harry, _please." _Harry took in Ginny's frantic state before nodding reluctantly.

"I know you don't want an owl," she began, "but Harry, you need one, and I know you say you can always just borrow one, but Harry you _can't_." She was close to letting the tears fall at this point, but she pushed onward, "You're an _auror_ Harry, and you go off, and you fight, and you almost die, and then you go off and you fight again, and every time I get a patronus, or a letter, or _something_ saying you're in the hospital again, and I'm okay with that, because you're _you_, and that's what you do. "

"But what if," she continued, "one day you get hurt again, and you can't contact anyone, and so you _die_, all because you don't have a stupid bloody owl." Harry stared bemusedly at her, but he didn't laugh, nor did he point out that his owl was not likely to be with him while he was in combat, or even if he was he, in his fatally injured state, would not be feeling up to writing a letter, instead he stood and engulfed her in a hug, kissing the top of her head he whispered quietly,

"Okay Dear, I'll get an owl."

**. . .**

"So," Ginny said as she walked through the door three days later, "I know you don't want an owl (Harry decided not to point out that he had already agreed to get one), so I found you the perfect match." Harry raised a singled eyebrow in her direction, setting the coffee he had been drinking down on the table in front of him,

"Did you?"

"Yep," Ginny exclaimed happily, "I got you an owl that doesn't want an owner." She then continued to turn around and walk right back out the door. She returned seconds later with a large cage; unlatching it she released the bird,

"His name's Oscar," she said. Harry's first thought was that Oscar was one _ugly_ bird, scarred and battle worn he was a sight to behold. Harry leaned back in his chair, lazily picking up his coffee again, and then promptly dropping it as the bird rushed at him.

Yelping, he grabbed his ear, where seconds before there had been a sharp stinging sensation, "It _bit_ me," he cried, indignant. Ginny nodded brightly at him,

"He does that," she explained, Harry however wasn't listening, instead he was studying his new pet, where it's left eye should have been there was a mass of scar tissue, his beak was missing a chunk, and his right leg seemed stiff, and then a thought popped into Harry's head. It was absolutely preposterous, but, Harry reasoned, this was the Wizarding World, in which _everything_ was ludicrous. So he warily shifted upright in his seat, altering his position so that his wand was easily available.

Oscar hooted approvingly, and the unexpectedly clacked its beak together, omitting a noise that sounded suspiciously like _constant vigilance_.

Harry groaned and slammed his head into the table, of course, of all the owls in the shop Ginny had to choose the reincarnation of Mad-Eye Moody.

Oscar bit him again.

**A/N So there you go, if this offends your religion or something feel free to pretend Harry's bonkers (because he almost certainly is).**

**Review people, reviews are like popsicles, popsicles cool you down on a hot day, I can't write in the heat, so cool me down with popsicles, err, reviews.**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N Fast update! Woo, thank you so much to my awesome reviewers, Surreal Squirrel, JensonBensen, ., RodentFace, OttoIsMyDog, taliandtutu and Zireael07, you people are absolutely wonderful!**

_**Tattoo**_

Harry's workout routine was fairly basic, almost exactly the same as all the other young Aurors in his department, the only difference was a slight adjustment in his push-ups, he had Ginny sitting on his back.

Ginny was a fairly small individual, only five foot three, so if she sat cross-legged on her husband's back it made for a better workout with half the number of push-ups, well that was Kingsley's theory anyway, one that Ginny fully supported and found extraordinarily amusing. Or at least she had until she figured out she had to wake up at six O'clock in the morning. Kingsley however hadn't really taken into consideration that Ginny could get pregnant, but she was only a month along, so it wasn't like she was _that_ much heavier. Harry however was prone to disagree.

His breathe was coming in short pants by the time hr got to thirty, and Ginny, who reckoned he would be sufficiently distracted, decided to start talking.

"Harry?" She said, Harry, who was having trouble breathing, never mind talking, could only grunt in reply. Ginny however took this as a good sign and continued talking,

"Do you ever think about getting a tattoo?" In response Harry jerked his head to the side to indicate the black paw print on his right bicep that he'd gotten to honor Sirius.

"Oh right, I mean another one." Harry shook his head and managed to get out in a quiet, raspy tone as he gulped down oxygen,

"No, not really. Why?"

"Well, I ran into Romilda Vane and Lavender Brown yesterday, and we started talking, although why I was talking to them I don't know, because I _really_ don't like them," Harry grunted again and Ginny smiled sheepishly,

"Oh, right. Off topic (Ginny's pregnancy hormones made her really talkative), anyway, we were talking, and I mentioned that we had gotten married, so we started talking about you, and that whole hippogriff tattoo rumor came up." Here Ginny paused to take a breath, before continuing onward at a speed that anyone but Harry, who was used to it by now, would have trouble following, "And we laughed about it, and they started talking about how air-headed and gossip obsessed we were back then, which is ridiculous, because I was _not _gossip-obsessed, that was _them_-" Harry grunted again to stop the rambling and Ginny switched back on track again,

"But anyway, the way they were talking made it clear that they were patronizing me, and they had a good laugh about how I'd told them it was a Hungarian Horntail, so I got really mad, and you know how I generally don't think when I'm mad, so I may or may not have told them you really did have a tattoo." Harry, who had at this point reached fifty and collapsed into a heap, lifted his head and twisted it around to face his wife, who still was sitting on his back,

"May or may not have?"

"Well I did," Ginny answered, "but that's not the point."

"Okay," Harry said, "I'll tell them I have a tattoo."

"Err, no, that's not going to work, you see they want proof."

"Proof?" Harry echoed.

"Umm yah, so I told them you'd show them it."

"That plan would be great, except, you know, I don't have a bloody Hungarian Horntail tattoo."

"The tattoo doesn't have to be gory, a normal one will do."

"Being pregnant made you a smart-ass."

"No, I've always been one."

"You should have told me that before we got married."

"Probably, but I'm having your kid right now so it's to kind of too late to change your mind."

"As much as I appreciate how hard it is for you to carry around this little, midget, person thing inside of you, I'm still not getting a tattoo."

"Did you just call your unborn child a midget?"

"Yep."

"And yet you won't get a tattoo?"

"That's correct, yes, and even if I were to get one, where would I show it to them? It's not like I walk around randomly taking my shirt off."

"I told them they could see it at our pool party."

"We don't have a pool."

"That's the other I wanted to talk to you about . . ."

**. . .**

The argument was ongoing, and although Ginny quickly convinced Harry to get a pool, the chances of him getting a tattoo however, were still obsolete. So Ginny enlisted the help of Hermione, who, although normally being quite a nice person, became particularly ruthless when it came to things concerning Lavender Brown. She too was unsuccessful. So Ginny, as a last resort embraced her inner Slytherin and got Percy to start lecturing about tattoos.

Harry, however golden, and _good_ he might be, had a problem with rules, and being told what to do. So at last he gave in,

"But I'm only getting a temporary one, okay? It'll last about two weeks and that's it." Ginny nodded enthusiastically and proceeded to drag him off to get it done.

The pool part went very well, and as expected Lavender and Romilda were both shocked and attracted to the very obvious dragon on Harry's chest, even more so when it didn't come off while he was in the water, or when his godson Teddy started scratching at it. Ginny, thoroughly satisfied with her victory over the two girls, had no problems accompanying Harry to get it removed. At least until the tattoo artist told them a mistake had been made and that Harry's tattoo was not temporary, but in fact quite permanent.

Harry would have yelled at the man (and possibly blown up his shop with accidental magic that he still got when angry), but was distracted by Ginny frantically apparating away. She sought refuge at Bill and Fleur's (who was a very scary woman when she put her mind to it) house, and Harry was later denied entrance on the basis that Bill thought he might kill his little sister.

The pair had no contact at all for two days until Harry sent his owl with a letter, it simply read,

_You are __so__ lucky I love you_

**. . .**

**A/N So there you go, Harry can keep his tattoo, or get it removed, it's up to your imagination (meaning I will be writing no more about it).**

**I would really like to reach 100 reviews with this chapter, so REVIEW PLEASE!**


	16. Chapter 16

**Sorry for the wait, but before you start complaining let it be known that I tore my hamstring at soccer practice, spent the better part of two hours calming down a screaming three year old, and recently discovered covert affairs had started up again. On a much cheerier note, thank you to my marvelous reviewers (I've got 102 now :D), taliandtutu, trtldx123, stay next to me, JensonBensen, Arrora, RodentFace, Zireael07, super16simone, cheygrl94, OttoIsMyDog, and Wondering Hail.**

_**Wedding Bliss**_

Ginny Potter had decided that she hated weddings, her own had been bad enough, but her youngest brother's happy unity to the local bookworm? Unbearable, this was why she was hiding in the first floor bathroom of the Granger household, staring mournfully at the painful looking dress hanging from the towel rack. Her self-pity was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"I'm changing," she called, while making no move whatsoever to reach for the piece of clothing that would be necessary if she would like to stay away from the doom-ending path that was lying. Fortunately she had long since delved down this path and her conscience no longer had any obligation whatsoever to stay away from it.

"So, can I come in then?" Ginny rolled her eyes slightly as she recognized her husband's joking tone, and leaned forward from her position on the countertop to unlock the door. Harry upon hearing the tell-tale click slipped inside and relocked the door behind him, grinning at his wife and nodding approvingly at the bridesmaid dress,

"Nice dress." Ginny frowned at him,

_"Of course_ you like it, you're a man, and are therefore completely insensitive and sexist, neither understanding nor appreciating how hard it is for women like me when we are forced to wear abominations like that dress ." Harry was not cowed by Ginny's speech, instead looking rather amused,

"And you're a woman, so you're therefore moody, and you generalize, and you fail to understand how hard it is to work as a full-time auror, part-time quidditch player, and best man to Ron, who is prone to having panic attacks when anyone brings up marriage."

"Hermione keeps going on and _on_, about combining cultures and traditional practices and all this stupid wedding crap that I never even _thought_ about." Ginny countered,

"Maybe that's because our wedding was about as relaxed as it could possibly be without your mother threatening to make us completely re-do it." Ginny frowned at him before answering, deciding to ignore the last comment which was no doubt a subtle jab at her femininity,

"If you're not here to console my frazzled nerves then why are you in my bathroom?"

"Yours? I was under the impression that-"

"Harry," Ginny practically growled, having already used up her daily quota of patience with the frantic-day-before-the-wedding atmosphere and Hermione's bemoaning of the shade of rose the tablecloths were (as far as Ginny was concerned rose was a shade of pink, and there was only one variation of it), "tell me now."

"Fine, no need to get grouchy, Ron attempted to punch me when I suggested that drinking that much firewhiskey on the day before his wedding might not be a good idea, so I confiscated it from him and hid before he could go on a rampage."

"And you brought it in here?"

"Well I couldn't just leave out for him to take back could I?"

"I suppose not, you're acting very responsibly."

"Of course, I'm a responsible person." Ginny took in the image of Harry, sitting on the closed seat of the toilet, arms folded across his chest, half empty bottle of firewhiskey in his lap, and laughed. Shaking her head in disbelief she said,

"I love you."

"Of course you do, I'm extremely lovable."

"Yah, yah, yah, now hand me the firewhiskey." And so it became that several swallows of firewhiskey later, Ginny sat up on Harry's shoulders trying to unscrew the cover to the ventilation shaft above her by twisting her wand around in a desperate attempt to get out of the house and away from the wedding madness. They were interrupted by a knock on the door,

"Hello, is anyone in there?" The voice belonged to Selena Davis, Hermione's only friend from muggle school, who was just as obsessed with rules and the like as Hermione had been in first year. She had been let in on the whole magic secret with special permission from Kingsley after Hermione threatened to turn his two house-elves against him (surprisingly after Hermione began working with the ministry in an actual department to help house-elf welfare the house-elves stopped treating her efforts as an insult and had learned to deal with her without bursting into tears).

Startled Harry tripped and crashed into the shower, bringing Ginny with him. Outside the door Selena frowned,

"Are you okay?" Her question was met by silence as Harry and Ginny nursed the bumps on their heads,

"Alright, I'm coming in," having spent much of her childhood in the Granger house Selena knew the trick about opening locked doors by wiggling the door knobs, and so she succeeded in making it swing open.

Her hair, pulled out of its bun, and the little pink crescents dotting her palms were the only indication of her clearly frustrated state. She was slightly shocked by the fact that there were two people in the bathroom rather than one and the fact that they were laying on the floor for some reason, but had been warned beforehand about Harry and Ginny, and their sometimes dysfunctional relationship, so she took it all in stride.

"What are you two doing, and why" she said, taking a deep breath, "does it smell like whiskey in here? Actually ignore that last question, more importantly, can I have some?"

**. . .**

Although Hermione will fervently deny it if it's brought up, the rumor that two thirds of the three bridesmaids, the groom, and the best man were all supporting slight hangovers at the formal and culturally combined wedding of Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley is unfortunately true.


	17. Chapter 17

**I'm back! My usual humungous thanks to the following amazing reviewers, RodentFace, super16simone, SoccerReader, OttoIsMyDog, Arrora, trtldx123, JensonBensen, and cheygrl94. I'M CHANGING MY PEN NAME, which if you follow my work is fairly important to know, it's going to be ink splattered tears.**

**Disclaimer: I own a kick ass Sirius Black poster, pink fuzzy dice, at least five soccer balls and a broken pair of headphones, as well as partial ownership of my laptop, I do not however own the wonderful world of Harry Potter.**

_**Twinkle Twinkle**_

"It's beautiful isn't it?" Ginny whispered to the figure that had just approached her side, she knew it was him, even with the dim lighting of the night.

"That it is," Harry whispered back, glad to be away from the noise of Charlie's birthday party.

"When I was little," Ginny said, "I'd sneak out at night to fly on my brothers' brooms, and I'd pretend that I could reach out and grab a star, right out of the sky, and then I'd have all that beauty right in my pocket, whenever I wanted it." Harry smiled at her, and leaned forward to whisper in her ear,

"I'll get a star for you," he promised, and Ginny let out a laugh,

"I'd tell you it wasn't possible, but I know you'd get me one just to prove me wrong if I did, and I generally dislike being proved wrong."

"That I would, and yes you do," and then he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and led her back to the light of the party just as George sent fireworks jetting across the sky.

**. . .**

Ginny was ecstatic, James was at the Burrow, Teddy was with Andromeda, and Harry had convinced Kingsley to let him off for the day. Which meant that for their second anniversary they did not have to watch screaming children, and Ginny had been promised by Kingsley that even if there was a major crisis (that included a fire at the Ministry, rise of a new dark lord, and muggles finding out about the existence of magic) Harry would not be pulled into work, she even went as far as to get in writing.

They went out to a quidditch game, had a fancy dinner during which Harry struggled not to kill the waiter (he was being rather obvious about hitting on Ginny, and his anger wasn't helped along by the fact that Harry hated fancy restaurants) , and by the time they finally got back home with the remnants of mint chocolate chip ice cream cones in their hands, the sinking sun was painting the world orange.

The two of them watched in silence as the cloudless night above them was overrun by stars, and the crescent moon rose up into the air, it was just a gorgeous as it had been that night years ago when they whispered about its beauty while escaping the chaos of Charlie's birthday party.

Harry seemed to remember that night as well for he reached into his pocket and withdrew a small white box, and handed it to his wife with a smile. She grinned up at him from her spot by his shoulder and opened the tiny package with care. Inside was a silver necklace, the chain was thin and strong and suspended from it was a silver star, dotted through with diamonds that sparkled into the night.

"Turn it over," Harry said, and Ginny complied with a small smile, _told you I'd get you a star_, it said and Ginny laughed outright, she should have known, Harry wasn't one to break promises.

"I love it," she told him, staring at the necklace in awe, and Harry smiled deviously at her,

"You haven't even seen the best bit yet, come one," and then he removed his arm from where it had rested on her shoulder and grabbed her hand, pulling her inside the darkened house. He stopped in the living room and pulled her hair away from her neck, fastening the clasp and whispered,

"Right out of the sky," and then something unexpected happened, the necklace began to flash, Ginny glanced nervously at it, but Harry seemed unconcerned, so she fought the instinct to pull it off. It continued to flash for a good five seconds before Ginny became aware of some peculiar going on in the general direction of the ceiling, and so she tilted her head up to take a look at it.

Just for a minute she thought the roof had been removed, and then she realized that the roof was still very much intact, but Harry had somehow managed to get a charmed necklace that projected the night sky on the ceiling (she had a suspicion that Hermione had been involved).

Harry was grinning wildly at her as he said, "Do you like it? I got the idea from a planetarium." Ginny briefly registered that a planetarium was probably some muggle thing involving planets, but then through the thought into the 'things I'll think about when I have nothing better to do' part of her brain. She simply grinned back at her husband and with a flick of her wand turned the wireless up really, really loud, grabbed his hands and started to dance.

It was not the formal dancing that they were often subjected to at Kingsley's many charity balls, but rather the kind that young children do that normally results in enough laughter to prevent any actual conversation. The atmosphere of course, was too good to last, as Harry proved when he looked down at her and said,

"You're kind of short."

"Not as short as you were when I first met you," Ginny retorted (her heart wasn't really in it after the whole necklace thing).

"True, but I got taller, you haven't."

"I'm a respectable five foot three, thank you very much."

"Respectable among dwarves maybe," Harry said with a smothered laugh.

"I am _not_ short."

"If you're not short how come I can do this?" Harry asked as he leaned forward suddenly, grabbed her, and threw her over his shoulder.

"Put me down!" Ginny screeched as she beat on his back with her small hands, "Put! Me! Down!" She was then hit by sudden inspiration and grabbed the wand out of the back pocket of Harry's jeans,

"Aguamenti," she half screamed and pointed the wand at Harry's face, unfortunately she was upside down at the time and half the water hit her, but that really didn't matter, because maybe it wasn't the way romance novels depicted events, and maybe she wouldn't be able to gush about it, but honestly? She wouldn't have it any other way.

**I have to babysit three children (three, five and six) tomorrow for seven hours, reviewing might take away some of my pain, and you don't want me in pain do you? This is about as fluffy as it's gonna get, thank god because I nearly threw up at the sweetness of it. Let me know if there are any mistakes.**

**The countdown begins, five more chapters left.**


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N So this is Christmas themed, and yes I realize that we're in the middle of July (for which I apologize, my muse abandoned me). Huge thanks to my marvelous reviewers, OttoIsMyDog, GleekForever246, RodentFace, cheygrl94, SoccerReader, Arrora, emandem, trtldx123, JensonBensen, janie17,** **PureAwesomeness13 and super16simone, you guys rock!**

_**Holiday Cheer**_

The clock in the village announced loudly that it was seven in the morning, awaking Harry who, as his wife often told him, was the definition of a light sleeper, Harry blamed his work. Yawning loudly and lighting his wand he sat up from the bed he currently resided in, blinking sleepily at the unfamiliar blue walls. His grip on his wand tightened, until he noticed his wife beside him and his young son on a cot several feet away, shaking his head at his paranoia he placed his wand back on the nightstand.

He was at the Burrow, in Ginny's childhood room because it was Christmas, and no one dared mention to Molly that the ever growing Weasley clan was really too big to celebrate inside the rickety old house.

Wait a minute . . . Christmas, Harry's hand scrambled over the nightstand, reaching for his glasses. Since Harry had been denied any sort of Christmas celebration in his childhood he always held a certain amount of childish excitement for the holiday, something his wife unfortunately didn't share.

Ginny hated annoying Christmas themed music, especially the kind her mum played around the house from dawn through nightfall, with fiery passion, and disliked any form of gingerbread, something no one but Harry seemed to pick up on since they kept giving it to her (or more likely they knew and shoved the stuff at her in order to annoy her).

It wasn't that she didn't love Christmas, she really did, but some of the Weasley traditions annoyed the hell out of her, even so, she always tolerated Harry's cheer with relative graciousness, except early in the morning.

Anyone who had ever known Ginny could tell you that she was not a morning person, talking to her before eight was suicidal, and even thinking about interacting with her before she'd had several cups of coffee was completely unheard of. Harry of course ignored all these rules (or guidelines as he preferred to think of them), because he was Harry, and breaking rules was what he did.

He shook his wife's shoulder a couple of times before she reached out with her hand and swatted him weakly in the arm while burying her face into her pillow, muttering something that sound suspiciously like 'Go away.' Harry, who was nothing if not stubborn, tried again, this time saying,

"Come on love, it's Christmas." Ginny however was not going to be awoken from her precious sleep without a fight,

"Uhu," she said, "and it will still be Christmas in two hours when I wake up, so leave me alone," before promptly closing her eyes and going back to sleep. Checking to make sure James was still asleep Harry gathered Ginny into his arms and got up. Ginny leaned into the heat from his body after being abruptly ripped from the safety of her covers, but otherwise showed not recognition of being removed from her bed.

Harry pushed the bedroom door open with his foot and descended down the stairs, entering the overflowing living room. Everyone looked up as he entered, but didn't seem surprised to see a sleeping Ginny in his arms, nodding his greeting Harry moved past them and towards the back door.

The biting December air hit Harry and Ginny as soon as the door opened, and Ginny snuggled deeper into the relative warmth of Harry's chest, Harry however was not feeling particularly sympathetic (she had stolen half of his treacle tart the night before) and continued on with his plan. He dropped her into the three feet deep snow that had accumulated on the ground outside. As expected, once submerged in to frozen mass Ginny awoke with a start, bolting upright and reaching for her wand, which had remained upstairs.

"Harry," she hissed, thoroughly upset about the predicament she found herself in, and then, without warning she tackled him around the knees and pushed him into the snow. Landing on top of him she preceded to shove as much snow as she could reach into his face, ignoring the protest of her frozen hands. Harry wasn't about to just lay there and take it however, so he shoved his wife off of him and pushed her deep into the snowdrift.

It was then that a commotion started in the house, caused by the arrival of Teddy and Andromeda through the floo. Noticing the open back door Teddy scampered over to investigate with his typical curiosity. Upon finding his partial guardians soaking wet, slightly blue, and covered in the snow he screeched with all the delight his four year old vocal cords could muster,

"Snowball fight!" Eyes widening with alarm Harry abandoned his post on top of his wife and quickly scooped his godson into his arms, hastening to get inside (the boy was ruthless when it came to snowball fights), Ginny following quickly behind.

Inside they were met with hot chocolate and several blankets, and as Ginny walked up the stairs to wake James, she realized, in between contemplating revenge, that there were some things about Christmas that weren't that bad at all.

With that happy thought she grabbed her son, went downstairs to open presents, and banished the blankets around Harry's shoulders, warning everyone with her glare exactly what would happen if they tried to give him another one.

**Four more chapters, I'm going on vacation on the 17****th****, I should get another update before then, but if not I apologize for my impending silence (I'll be gone for two weeks).**


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N So I'm back, my vacation was wonderful, and I now have a brit picker, give it up for the fabulous Anakha Swift! Anyway, huge thanks to the following people, IAmTheCoolestGirl, secretsinger, Nada1224, janie17, SoccerReader, Loony Luvgood1, Rani Jashalithie, OttoIsMyDog, cheygrl94, Nymphadora, jennimiley, RodentFace, PureAwesomeness13, super16simone, and anonymous. I'm so sorry if I didn't reply to your review, being away messed me up and I couldn't remember which I'd replied to and which I hadn't. Since my last update You Suck has received 16 reviews, 13 for chapter 18, that is a **_**huge**_** number, thank you guys so, so much. I never in a million years expected this amount of feedback, and it's all because of you people who press the review button, so thanks!**

_**Lost**_

"We could take the floo."

"No we can't, they haven't set it up yet."

"We could take the Knight Bus."

"No, I told you I'm not getting on that thing until they give me my money back for that hot chocolate."

"_Really_ Gin? You're still going on about that?"

"He spilled that hot chocolate all over the floor and then wouldn't get me another one."

"Yes, but he did that _months_ ago."

"And in case you haven't noticed I still haven't gotten a refund or refill."

"What about the car?"

"You mean the one Teddy and James borrowed and crashed into a tree with?" A new voice joined the conversation then, a young, and indignant voice,

"Hey, we already apologised for that, and we're spending all our weekends gardening at the Burrow until we make enough money fix it." Here the first voice rolled his emerald green eyes,

"Of course Ted, _ever_ so sorry for bringing up your stupid mistake, won't happen again, I promise," the sarcasm was biting, and twelve year old Teddy decided glaring at his godfather was the best path to take. Meanwhile Ginny started talking again,

"So we can't Apparate, because Lily and Albus are still too young, we can't floo because the connection hasn't been set up yet, we can't drive because Teddy broke the car-"

"I _said_ I was sorry!"

"Just drop it Ted, the longer you protest the longer they'll spend pointing it out," James broke in while his mother continued talking,

"We can't fly because Teddy and James are grounded and aren't allowed to touch any brooms, so we'll walk." Albus then decided that he wanted his say in the conversation and said,

"I don't want to walk all the way to Uncle Percy and Aunt Audrey's new house, Freddy said it was really far away and that a troll guards the path and will eat you if you step on it."

"Yeah!" His little sister agreed, to which Ginny responded with a sigh,

"What have your father and I told you about the things your cousin says to you." Albus scrunched his eyebrows together while four year old Lily comically imitated him,

"You said that we should tell an adult what he said and then they'll tell us if it's true or not, except Uncle George because you can never trust anything Uncle George says."

"That's right Al, and I'm telling you that there are no trolls guarding the road to Uncle Percy's house," Ginny said to her youngest son. Albus however had always been too perceptive for his own good so he picked up on the detail his mother hadn't denied.

"But it is really far away?" Here his father grinned triumphantly,

"Yes it is Al, which is why we're not walking."

"Oh yes we are," his wife disagreed, glaring hard at Harry.

"No we're not."

"Yes we are, it's only seven miles or something and if we do it I can finally stop lying to my mother about how much family bonding we do."

"We do plenty of family bonding, we play quidditch all the time when James and Teddy aren't grounded, and when they are we play anyway and make them watch," Harry exclaimed.

"My mother doesn't think quidditch counts as bonding, you know that."

"I still don't understand why."

"Because 'When we play quidditch we're competing against each other, and competing against each other drives us apart instead of bringing us together' or something like that anyway."

"She's been listening to _Family Magic_ on the wireless again, hasn't she?" Harry asked. Ginny nodded tiredly,

"She's been trying to make me listen to it as well."

"How'd you get out of that one?"

"I dropped the wireless in the fish tank and when she asked again I told her it was broken."

"Well if it's in the fish tank it's actually broken isn't it?"

"Exactly, which is why I wasn't lying."

"You broke our wireless so you wouldn't have to lie to your mother?"

"Bit extreme wasn't it?" Teddy asked, and then doubled over in pain when James elbowed him in the stomach,

"Will you shut up," he asked, "You'll get us locked in our rooms and it took Freddy _weeks_ to get us out last time." Meanwhile Lily and Albus had started to raid the candy drawer, and Ginny was answering Harry's question,

"She told me to be more honest with her. Which is why we're walking, so I don't have to lie."

"You want me to walk seven miles, on my weekend off?"

"If you don't I'll tell Ron it was you who drank the last of the coffee." Harry blinked in shock after his wife's threat,

"How did you know it was me?"

"I didn't, but you just told me."

"You are a horrible, horrible woman."

"Oh I realise."

**. . .**

Several hours later the family could be seen walking along a crumbling country road, still arguing fiercely.

"Gin, will you please just admit that we're lost so we can ask for directions," Harry pleaded, they had yet to stop for a break and Harry now had Lily up on his shoulders, Albus on his back, and was pulling Teddy and James along behind him in a wagon he had transfigured from stone.

"No, we're not lost, we're simply a little turned around."

"Ginny. You see that thing in the sky? It's the sun. Do you see what it's doing? It's setting. I am carrying all four of the children and a wagon that I'm fairly sure is still at least twenty-five percent stone, and I can't levitate any of them because your brother decided to move to a muggle town. We. Are. Getting. Directions!" And then it started to rain. "Perfect," Harry muttered, "just perfect."

He was however put out of his misery when several seconds later the front door of one of the houses a little way down the road opened up, and the very familiar figure of Percy Weasley appeared, swathed in a black rain jacket and carrying an oversized umbrella.

"Come on in," he called, gesturing towards the open doorway of his now house, "Luce and Molly can't wait to see you."

"See," Ginny called as they set off at a trot towards the dry looking porch, "I told you we weren't lost."

**. . .**

**Only three chapters left.**


	20. Chapter 20

**Right, before I start thanking people, and I have a large number of wonderful people to thank, I owe you an explanation for the 3+ months it's been since I updated. Two words, Real life, which is an awful, awful thing. Cross Country season (which was horrible), homework (which was not quite as bad) and the death of my dear laptop. I am back now though, and will start by thanking my wonderful readers and reviewers, who make me feel like a much better author than I actually am.**

**Starting with the always wonderful JensonBensen who I am sad to say I have ruined men and families for, this chapter probably won't help with the latter, terribly sorry my dear, as well as OttoIsMyDog, Rani Jashalithie, Blastoise100, RodentFace, People-Are-Crazy, cheygrl94, Arrora, PureAwesomeness13, blueisasome (who reviewed **_**a lot**_** in one day), SeekerofAncientLegend, SSJJ92, Charlottealex13, Nada1224, mcbabe586, InuLoveKawaii13, countrymusicfanatic, Lafayette1777, AwesomeBear22, and brilliant incandescence. **

**And of course ****Anakha Swift my lovely brit-picker.**

_**It Started with Orange Juice. . .**_

If you have ever had orange juice come out your nose you will know that it is not a pleasant feeling, Ginny Potter was not an exception to this rule. Ginny and Harry were having a nice breakfast in bed at eight O'clock on a Sunday morning in June while ignoring the screams coming from downstairs, and locking their bedroom door, blissfully pretending that they weren't the parents of three energetic children.

Ginny however had been forced to run to their bathroom as she, for the first time in her life, experienced the unpleasantness that was orange juice spurting out of her nose. Using a damp cloth to wipe away the sticky mess, and contemplating whether she should be laughing or groaning, Ginny glanced out her window, and promptly lost all pretences that she had no children. For her sofa was currently making its way towards the pool.

"Harry," she called, "Come look at this."

Harry, who had shown only amusement at Ginny's struggles with the orange juice, walked languidly over to where she stood, eyebrow raised and clad only in a pair of low slung pyjama bottoms. Ginny gestured soundlessly to the closed window. Harry, observing the scene below, let out a small laugh,

"Well," he asked, "should we punish them?"

"My first response is yes, but then I hit that wall of fear where I realise that's exactly what my mother would have done."

"We have quite the dilemma then," Harry responded, smirking due to his knowledge of his wife's irrational fear of becoming her mother. "I would suggest we go talk to them first, then decide whether or not yelling is necessary."

"I suppose this means we have to get dressed doesn't it?" Ginny sighed, quite disappointed that she was once again a mother of three.

Five minutes later the couple were headed down the stairs and confronted with the chaos that was their household. The first sign of danger was Rose sitting on their stairs, painting a picture Kreacher, who had been turned blue at some point, onto the wall.

Rose was going through an artistic stage, which meant she never wore shoes, painted quite regularly on the walls, called her parents by their first names and demanded to be referred to as Flow. This meant that the eight year old girl spent a lot of time at her Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry's house, mostly because Hermione though wearing shoes when outdoors was a mandatory safety issue, disliked things being painted on her lovely neutral coloured walls, found being referred to by her first name by her children highly disrespectful, and refused to call her daughter something "as frankly ridiculous as Flow."

"Ro-Flow darling," Harry asked as he approached the young girl, "why is Kreacher blue?"

Rose looked up from her painting in order to respond,

"I have gotten bored with the norm of art and have decided to move on to something more abstract."

"Abstract means turning an elderly house elf blue?" Harry asked doubtfully, Rose stared at him disdainfully,

"Of course, do you know nothing about art?" And then, without waiting for a response turned back to her masterpiece, muttering about how nobody understood or appreciated her brilliance.

Several seconds later, after Harry, who had long given up understanding any of the younger generation, gave his equally baffled wife a tired look, she added,

"Oh, by the way, Rolf stopped by and dropped the bloody twin terrors off, something about pretending he wasn't a parent, said he'd take them back on Thursday." (She had also taken to swearing like her father, which did nothing to help Hermione understand her "phase")Harry responded rather well to this, glad that he and Ginny were not the only people with abysmal parenting skills in the family. As if on cue Lysander and Lorcan rolled past the bottom of the stairs, smacking each other senseless as they argued over whether One-horned-Austrian-Goeliths were purple or green.

Continuing on, under a silent agreement to pretend they hadn't just witnessed two children under their care attempt to kill each other, Ginny and Harry entered the kitchen, where their second eldest was hanging, feet glued to the ceiling, as was standard punishment in the Potter household.

"Al, have you been up there all night? You were only supposed to stay up for two hours." Ginny exclaimed.

Albus let out a jittery laugh, letting go of his ankles so he was suspended fully upside down, "Oh that's all right Mum, I was about to come down when I had a breakthrough about that problem at the DoM Aunt Hermione was telling me about, I'm about to crack the equation."

For an eight year old Albus was much too intelligent for his own good, and Harry could not even begin to decipher the equation his son had written on the ceiling,

"Did you get any sleep at all?" Harry asked, wondering if not noticing his son had not gotten down from the ceiling would be considered a trait of a bad father.

"I'll nap later," Albus said off handedly, "Lily's been bringing me coffee, or she was until she ran off with James."

"Won't coffee stunt your growth?" Harry asked, feeling quite sure that he was a complete fail of a parent,

"Remember, a while ago, you said I couldn't drink it after you had to go to that ministry sponsored parenting seminar and came back feeling guilty about being awful at being a normal dad, and then I did that experiment which proved it wouldn't stunt my growth. . .much because of the whole magic thing, and then I asked again and you said yes." Al finally had to stop talking in order to breathe, and Harry wasn't sure whether the redness of his face came from the blood rushing to his head or the long winded explanation he had given that did not actually answer Harry's question.

"I don't remember telling you that you could have coffee."

"Well you were heavily medicated at the time, and really your nod was probably you falling asleep, but I took it as yes anyway since you had already promised Lily she could have a Pegasus. . . and a unicorn. . . and a teddy bear made out of sweets." Harry pinched his nose as Ginny laughed silently behind him and let him deal with the situation, the coward, he could already feel a headache forming behind his eyes. Harry decided procrastination was the best route to take and said,

"We'll talk about this later, in the mean time finish whatever it is you're doing up there and go get some sleep before Hermione finds out that I let her most important consultant stay up all night glued to the ceiling."

"You're the best, dad," Albus said with a grin, "I don't suppose you could hand me that mug over there would you?" Harry decided that he might as well be hanged as a wolf than as a sheep and levitated the mug upward, hoping that Molly Weasley would forgive him if she ever found out.

Finally Harry and Ginny made it outside, where James, Freddy, and Teddy were just finishing manually lowering the sofa (on which Lily sat in all her six year old pigtailed glory) into the pool. Ginny, who felt slightly guilty (but not really) about making Harry be the parent for the last fifteen minutes, was the first to speak up,

"What in the name of Merlin's left-"

"Didn't you promise Grandmum that you wouldn't swear in front of us anymore after you hopelessly ruined James and I?" Teddy asked innocently, helping Lily out of the water and holding her soaking wet body several feet in front of him as she giggled. Ginny glared at her godson,

"I did not hopelessly ruin you," she argued.

"You did a bit," Freddy broke in, "They got kicked out of their nursery school for swearing quite creatively at their teacher." Whatever Ginny was going to say was cut off as Harry asked suddenly,

"I thought you were grounded Fred, why are you _here_?"

"Mum grounded me," Freddy answered with a roguish grin, "But dad ungrounded me because my idea was quite brilliant. Then he said he didn't mind if I bred a bowtruckle and a jabberknoll, but that if I did it again I should talk to Hagrid because the ministry has long given up on regulating him when it comes to breeding magical creatures." Ginny blinked, and realised that with the general lack of parenting skills most of her family possessed that the kids had never really stood a chance,

"Right, well why is our sofa currently inhabiting the pool?" James looked at his mother as if the answer should be quite obvious,

"Because the steps in the pool are really uncomfortable to sit on." Ginny wondered how her mother had possibly raised all seven of her children and come out relatively sane.

"We are going sofa shopping, and yes you have to come, and when we come back you are all serving an hour on the ceiling," as she said this Harry had levitated the sofa out of the pool, dried it, and put a waterproof charm on it. He then dried his daughter off and relieved Teddy of her,

"Come on you lot, we have a sofa to buy." Ginny herded them all inside while Teddy asked Harry solemnly,

"Can I run away?" Harry blinked slowly and viewed his godson with a speculative gaze,

"Two questions, is it really still running away if you ask permission, and why do you _want_ to run away in the first place?"

"Well," Teddy explained, "Vicky got her tongue pierced and her mum isn't pleased and Bill is in some South African country so he can't calm her down, and she's pregnant again so she's all hormonal and shouts a lot, Fleur I mean, not Vicky." Harry nodded seriously and said,

"You can run away if you promise to be back by Friday because Andromeda is picking you up, and she'll skin me alive, and you have to come sofa shopping with me."

"Why?" Teddy asked with a groan.

"Because Fleur will be in great distress when her oldest daughter runs away, and she'll turn to all the women in this family, and they'll all find some way to blame me, because that's how it works. Then Ginny will make me sleep on the sofa, and unless we get a new one I wouldn't put it past her to make me sleep on the sofa that is currently in the pool, because of you, I might point out" Teddy sighed,

"I can so see her doing that. I suppose we'll have to buy a really comfortable sofa won't we?"

"Teddy, I spend about as much time on the sofa as I do in my bed, that sofa had better be the most comfortable damn thing in the shop."

. . .

**Two left :D R&R **


	21. Chapter 21

**It's been like a year, and for that I'm so sorry. I never intended to leave it this long, things just got away from me. But **_**huge**_** thanks for the following reviewers, who I hope haven't given up on me yet. The fact there's so many of you makes me feel even guiltier (20, I don't think you realize how over-the moon that makes me).**

**JensonBensen, BraveryisStrength, Rani Jashalithie, PoppyPotter, The B00KW0RM, CatrinaBear, RodentFace, Guest (anon), DevilCharms, blueisasome, Nymphadora, seasidesimone, janie17, brilliant incandescence, cheygrl94, Iptrthr4iam, .153, SSJJ92, countrymusicfanatic, PureAwesomeness13.**

**On that note another thanks to Anakha Swift for all she's done (this includes catching the fact that I spelled Galaxy180 three different ways. . .)**

**I haven't acquired ownership of HP over my absence, damn it, was on my to do list and everything. . .I haven't acquired ownership of HP over my absence, damn it, was on my to do list and everything. . .**

_**The Public Humiliation of. . .Well Basically Everyone**_

Lily Luna Potter's competitive streak was genetic, that everyone agreed one. What they did not agree on was who she got it from, it might have been any one of her numerous uncles, or aunts for that matter, or either one of her parents. When it came down it though, it did not really matter where it came from, because no matter who the gene could be traced to, it did not change the fact that Lily Potter wanted to win.

So, Harry was not really all that surprised when Lily came home from the Young Witches Adventure Association with a plea to go door to door selling biscuits.

"Why would you possibly want to sell biscuits to annoying strangers?" Harry asked, pinching the bridge of his nose as he looked up from the pile of paperwork he had procrastinated about up until then

"Who's selling biscuits?" Ginny asked as she entered the kitchen.

"Lily is, apparently, though I haven't been told why yet."

"Because," nine year old Lily said exasperatedly, "whoever sells the most gets the new Galaxy180."

"I could buy you the new Galaxy180," Harry offered.

"It's not even out in the market yet Dad."

"And how would that stop me from buying it?" Harry asked.

"Daaaaddddd," Lily whined, "Rose and I are tied right now, if she wins this competition I might never catch up. Talk to him Mum, please." Ginny nodded at her only daughter, and grabbed Harry's sleeve, pulling him out of the kitchen and into the hallway.

"Look Harry," she whispered fiercely, "We've got to let her do this. If Rose wins more competitions than her this year then Hermione and my brother will never let us live it down."

"Fine, she can do it, but I'm not going with her."

"Yes you are. She'll sell twice as much if you're there."

"You want me to use my fame to manipulate people into buying biscuits?"

"Yes! Think of it as payback from when you were a kid and manipulated your image to be whatever suited their needs."

"Honestly Gin, we're sinking to that level?"

"If it means we beat Hermione and my brother then yes."

"Fine, but for the record I'm stating that we are sad, _sad_ people."

So that's how Harry found himself walking up and down his neighbourhood and the surrounding ones, looking for people who wanted to buy biscuits from the boy-who-lived. Ginny went with him, wearing an old Harpy's shirt from when she played for them. The double fame convinced quite a few people to buy more biscuits than they probably wanted.

Lily skipped ahead of them, smiling at the ever decreasing pile of boxes in the wagon Harry had been roped into pulling.

"I still don't see why this is necessary." Harry groaned, "If you want I'll buy all the biscuits in the wagon." Lily rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, looking scarily like her mother,

"Then Rose will accuse me of cheating, like she did when I won the hippogriff race, even though I beat her fair and square."

"You don't even _like_ the YWAA," Harry pointed out tiredly, pulling the wagon up a drive way that seemed vaguely familiar (and the thought that he might be selling biscuits to someone _knows_ terrified him), "And yet I still end up selling biscuits _every single year_."

"If it makes you feel better I'm leaving the YWAA at the end of this year."

"I would feel better if I didn't know my years of pain were for a higher purpose than some ridiculous competition with Rose over who can win the most activities in an association you both despise." Lily rolled her eyes again,

"That's why I'm leaving; Rose is going off to Hogwarts next year so she can't participate." Harry moaned as he rung the door bell,

"You can't even _quit_ without it being some ludicrous contest." Lily rang the doorbell again, responding indignantly,

"You and mum are exactly the same way. I was doomed from the start,"

"Did you inherit any positive traits from us?" Ginny asked amusedly, leaning up against the railing of the porch, she didn't get her answer though as the door had opened and Lily began her spiel with her best aren't-I-adorable-smile.

"Hi! I'm Lily Potter and these are my parents, Harry and Ginny Potter and we were wondering if you would like to buy some biscuits?" Here she smiled sweetly again, half hoping the lady would initially refuse so she could do the wounded but-your-money-will-go-to-making-sure-little-girls-have-something-to-do-and-don't-end-up-homeless-criminals bit. Ginny meanwhile had gone pale with horror, and Harry had plastered on his they-talked-me-into-it face, trying to save some of his dignity in front of the head of the Department of Muggle Relations.

Judging by the amused smirk it wasn't working.

It just got worse though, as none other than Hermione Weasley nee Granger came to stand behind her good friend asking,

"Who's at the door, Susan?"

And then silence prevailed for several seconds before Rose pushed her way past her mother and set eyes on her little cousin,

"You dirty little-" What surely would have been an impressive display of obscenities remaining from her "Flow" stage was cut off as Hermione was jolted out of her shock, eyes bright with anger.

"Really Harry? I expected this from Ginny, but not from you." Harry didn't respond, eyes wide with helplessness at the impossible situation he had been dragged into.

"It's really not my fau-" he started as Ginny spluttered in indignation but Hermione cut him off,

"Well, two can play at this game, you're not the only one with your face on a chocolate card Mr. Voldemort-Vanquisher. Ronald! Grab your coat, we have biscuits to sell." Lily scoffed at Rose,

"My parents are far more famous than yours." Harry meanwhile looked as if he might start crying, with Hermione and Ron out selling biscuits as well there was no way he would have any shred of self-respect left at the end of the day.

The press were going to tear him apart.

"The winner of are annual biscuit sale is," Rose and Lily's troop leader announced dramatically as she struggled to open the envelope containing the results,

"Totally me," Rose whispered to her cousin, who was seated next to her,

"You wish, I creamed you," both girls snorted slightly, "pun not intended."

"Drum roll please," the troop leader (well the new one, they only ever lasted a month or so dealing with _both_ Lily and Rose) requested, and the girls responded half-heartedly (they all knew there were only two potential winners and they were not one of them).

"Lysander Scamander."

Dead silence, and then from the two red-heads who had been glaring smugly at each other seconds before,

"He's not a member of our troop,"

"He's a _boy_," they shouted, for once in an agreement (each other currently the lesser of two evils). Their troop leader only smiled genially (which was not her usual response to the red-headed duo mind you),

"He's a boy who sold a very impressive amount of biscuits." Rose and Lily watched open mouthed as Lysander walked away from his father and brother (who stood in the very back of the room, eyes to the ceiling in an attempt to convince themselves that this. Was. Not. Happening.) and towards the brand new, not even for sale yet, Galaxy180.

"How did you even-" his not quite cousins asked at once,

"Put an add out in the Quibbler, thank you very much ma'am," the end of his statement directed to the troop leader who handed him the broom, "By the way," he continued, "I quit." And then he walked back to his father and brother and left.

And from that day on the two girls had a somewhat major crush on the boy.

**For those of you who still care, I'm not giving up. I have one more chapter left and god-damn-it I'll get it done.**

**Thanks for reading after all this time,**

**Punk**


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